T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM Caleb Winey, the community engagement coordinator at Iowans for Tax Relief, explained to the Marshall County Pachyderm Herd how counties and towns can increase property tax revenue during the regular weekly meeting at Legends American Grill on Friday.

Some local Republicans received more information on the complex and multi-layered property tax system during the regular Marshall County Pachyderm Herd meeting over the lunch hour on Friday.

Iowans for Tax Relief (ITR) Community Engagement Coordinator Caleb Winey told roughly 30 people about some property tax details and processes, and provided current information on rates in Marshalltown. ITR is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating people about taxes and lobbying for legislation to save tax dollars.

He ensured attendees that the Marshalltown and Marshall County numbers shown came from the local governments.

“The only reason the numbers would be wrong is if they were wrong from the source,” Winey said. “Which has happened.”

Winey began the tax section of his presentation by explaining ITR’s “pain map,” which breaks down the property rate increases of each county. In the map, 0-4 percent equals “mild pain;” 4-6 percent, “moderate;” 6-9 percent, “severe;” 9-20 percent, “excruciating” and; more than 20 percent is “unspeakable.”

The map, created in August 2024, indicates that Marshall County is in the “mild” category with a 1.6 percent increase. By comparison, neighboring Grundy County is considered to be “unspeakable” with a 21.3 percent increase; Tama, “excruciating” with 13.9; Story, “moderate” with 5.7; Hardin, “moderate” with 5.4 and; Jasper, “mild” with 2.4.

“As far as Marshall County, your guys’ property taxes are not that bad . . . instead of a 23.5 percent increase like we had in Dallas,” Winey said.

He stressed the importance of residents attending public hearings when it comes to budgets and added that not everything is paid for with property taxes.

“All the departments have their numbers, and have to spend this much in order to offer these essential services or fund these projects,” Winey said. “I encourage everyone to go to those hearings and see how they’re spending their money, because it’s not magic money that comes out of the air.”

Oftentimes, he said there is no accountability for how tax money is spent. The reason property taxes are such an issue is because of government spending, Winey added. As an example, the city of Burlington lowered the general levy, but increased the franchise fees to make up for the lost revenue. Giving the appearance of creating a break for the taxpayers, the government found a way around it.

“Those franchise fees are something that can just be implemented,” Winey said.

What ITR would like to see is state legislation that would cap the revenue a local government can take in, such as Senate Study Bill 1227 and House Study Bill 328. A cap would provide real tax relief and put a stop to the blame game, he said.

“That will help local governments plan for their budget,” Winey said. “Next year, the $6.2 million we take in can only grow by two percent.”

However, a cap could create behavior to watch for — for example, he said some governments have dramatically increased fees or levies because officials knew a cap was coming.

“If we get the two percent, it wouldn’t surprise me if you saw all of a sudden a bunch of budgets skyrocket,” Winey said. “We’ve seen that in the past before with the mental health and general support levies. . . . But it will give us tax relief in the long run.”

He highlighted a property tax graph for Marshalltown, stretched back to 2016. According to the graph, Marshalltown has lost population, but experienced a property tax growth of 52.6 percent. With a 32.7 percent inflation rate and population size, a reasonable tax growth would have been 32.5 percent during that time frame.

“What really hurts communities is when the population starts going down, and the property taxes keep going up,” he said. “What you are doing is removing people who can help pay that burden in the community. If you’re losing 1,000 [to] 4,000 people and your revenue and property taxes are going up $500,000 to $1 million, the community is going to start realizing their property tax bill is jumping up.”

Winey said the general levy in Marshall County is maxed out at $3.50. There are other ways to levy taxes to bring in more property tax dollars, he added. For example, there is an EMS levy which is a tax the county places. Tama County voters approved one at the polls last November, but Marshall does not currently have an EMS levy in place.

“Cities and counties don’t have to levy an additional tax to pay the services. They just have it wrapped up in their general budget,” Winey said. “Once the general budget and spending gets so out of control, they say they have to levy an additional tax to bring in more revenue to pay for an essential service.”

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Contact Lana Bradstream

at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.