There’s been a bill that has had many counties and cities asking questions.

Iowa Senator for District 12 Amy Sinclair says House File 718 would make changes to property taxes to help Iowans. She mentions that it would automatically cause levies to decrease when assessments rise, restores basic levy limitations and consolidates 15 different levies to help Iowans know exactly what they’re paying. Sinclair tells Raccoon Valley Radio how these changes would affect city and county governments.

“How does that impact how local governments budget? Well the reality of it is since we’re just putting back in place those actual limits that are already law and we can’t exceed those, most of the places are not going to see any impact, except for those high growth areas, where that high growth will be limited by a lowered levy. They’re still going to realize new revenue from that growth. It’s going to make local governments look at budgeting a little differently because they currently look at it as ‘If I don’t have enough, I can just go above and beyond it because I can have a budget hearing and everything will be okay.’ What this is saying is, if you’re going to raise taxes, you’re going to tell people you’re the one raising taxes, not just that the state raised your assessment.”

Sinclair adds that the bill would require cities, counties and schools to inform landowners of any changes to property tax bills as well.