The city held a hearing on the max levy rate for the community. Mount Vernon city administrator Chris Nosbisch said that the levy rate wasn’t reflective of Mount Vernon’s actual levy, as it didn’t have some of the funds. The city of Mount Vernon’s tax rate will remain at $12.99 per $1,000.
The city saw an increase in valuation of roughly 8 percent last year, which has helped generate more revenue.
The council will have a hearing on the official budget at March 7’s meeting.
Nosbisch outlined a plan to tackle a number of projects in the city’s comprehensive improvement plan. The original plan was for the city to borrow roughly $1.75 million to complete police department renovations, the Palisades Road project and build a cold storage facility for public works.
Nosbisch recommended using the money the city would receive from the American Rescue Plan of $660,000 for the police department renovations. The council had previously earmarked the ARP funds for a radio water meter replacement project for the city. Nosbisch said he’d rather utilize state revolving funds for this project, as that wouldn’t count against the city’s debt capacity and could be levied against the utilities that benefit from the improvement.
At the council meeting, Nosbisch said another reason for switching to using SRF funding would be to get bids for the best radio meter reads by having more money to work with for the bid.
Mount Vernon city council member Paul Tuerler noted that the parameters for the city are to find the best responsible bid, not just the cheapest bid for a project.
The council will use $450,000 of the Business 30 buyout to make the improvements to Palisades Road.
The council would utilize $400,000 in borrowing to cover the cold storage facility for public works.
This would reduce the spending on projects that need borrowing from $1.75 million to a little more than $600,000 this year.
These changes would keep the city’s debt capacity ready for borrowing for some of the bigger projects that could exceed $1 million in costs a few years away – the city pool project (renovations or reconstruction), downtown First Street streetscape and reconstruction, and public works administration shop facility.