By Patricia Bogumil
Editor
The Village of Union Grove will present its proposed 2015 budget during a 6 p.m. public hearing Monday, Nov. 24, at the Municipal Building, 925 15th Ave.
The proposed $3,559,465 budget is down 4.34 percent ($161,583) from last year’s $3,721,048 budget.
The tax levy for general property taxes is proposed at $1,687,897, a 7.46 percent drop ($136,161) from last year’s $1,824,058 in taxes.
Village President Mike Aimone said the Village Board has been working diligently to keep taxes down. “We don’t take that lightly,” Aimone said.
Case in point: The Village Board found ways to levy less than the maximum taxes allowed by the state, Aimone said. “We do not feel it’s necessary to levy the tax amount we’re allowed,” he said.
Working to prepare the budget proposal while keeping the levy limit in mind allowed the board some wiggle room for setting aside money in 2015 for capital equipment costs, Aimone added. “There was a lot of hard work done on the part of the departments and the Village Board for keeping in line with the expenses,” Aimone said.
Among the factors and challenges in the proposed 2015 budget:
• About $242,000 in “other taxes” are listed in the budget proposal, an increase of $1,235 from last year’s budget. These include items such as mobile home taxes, computer tax levy, and offsets for what the Village pays for fire hydrant use. Rental fees for that are paid, but then are reimbursed, Aimone explained.
• Intergovernmental revenues are up about $90,000. This represents the money the Village receives from the State of Wisconsin from sales taxes that were collected. Also, transportation aids have risen, Aimone said. The Village’s recycling grant is also up slightly.
• “Miscellaneous revenues” are down about $45,000 from what was budgeted last year. Factors influencing this include lower interest rates, and changes in TV fees collected from Time Warner. Also, loans in a Village revolving loan fund that helps local businesses that are seeking to expand and otherwise improve have all been paid off, so no funds are coming in, Aimone explained.
• Indebtedness has dropped by $79,468 in the proposed budget. The Village paid off the Municipal Building in 2014, and also paid off a loan for the demolition of the old grade school and the building of School Yard Park.
“We’re very happy to decrease our indebtedness by nearly $80,000 this year,” Aimone said. At a couple of meetings held before finalizing the budget proposal, the value of working to pay off the debt was made clear, Aimone said.
The village’s tax rate for 2015 is figured to be $6.77 per each $1,000 of assessed property valuation.
For the owner of a home assessed at $150,000, that equates to $1,016 in Village municipal taxes for 2015. Under last year’s $7.28/$1,000 tax rate, the owner of a home assessed at $150,000 paid $76 more, or $1,092, in Village taxes.
But while the Village’s tax rate has been cut, property values in the Village have been rising, Aimone noted.
Besides Village taxes, the tax bills arriving in a few weeks will include taxes issued by the state and county and the local schools.
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