Three Highlights from Tuesday’s Ottumwa City Council Meeting

OTTUMWA, Iowa (KYOU) - Ottumwa’s 2022 Fiscal Budget continues on last year’s decrease of the property tax. This year by around 24 cents.

Finance Director Kala Mulder says a $50,000 house could see savings of around $12-13.

Double the savings for a $100,000 house, and so on.

However, while the overall municipal levy is reduced this year (largely in part to the removal of transit), some levies, like debt services, are increasing.

Mulder says it was lower in the past to keep overall taxes lower, but at the cost of having savings.

“By [Fiscal Year 2025], we should be able to bond and pay in full on an annual basis, using that debt service. That’s our goal right now.”

The budget drew complements from longtime Councilmember Matt Dalbey.

“Hats off to this new administration. You guys are doing a whole different process. It’s a much improved process. It’s a much more open process. And at the same time we’ve had a couple of rough years since I’ve been on the council here, and it looks like things are finally getting to go in the right direction.”

And Representative Marianette Miller-Meeks will have a new district office in City Hall.

The upstairs offices of 201 A and B will serve as a further connective tissue between people in the city and federal agencies.

A date for the offices to open wasn’t given, but City Administrator Phil Rath says they could have the offices ready within a week.

And Bridgeview Center gave a peek into their 2020 year.

Though COVID shut many events down, representatives report the venue held 310 events in 2020, attended by over six hundred and fifty thousand people: “Bridgeview Center is still yielding a multi-million dollar impact at a time where we needed it most.”

Bridgeview’s Executive Director Scott Hallgren told KYOU a full annual report will be shown in a council meeting, likely in April.