(Spirit Lake)– The Spirit Lake City Council Monday unanimously adopted the city’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year following a public hearing.
City Administrator Pete Hegeman says it has a property tax levy that’s the lowest in some 25 years. The levy for the upcoming fiscal year will be $9.44 per thousand dollars valuation, compared with $9.53 currently and $10.65 in 1982. Hegeman attributes the reduction to the Local Option Sales Tax and tax increment financing. He says those tools weren’t available to the city in the 1980’s. And if it wasn’t for them now, Hegeman says the city would be looking at much higher tax rates and many of the projects it’s carried out probably wouldn’t have been possible.
