LAHARPE — It took a couple of swings to get it done Wednesday, but LaHarpe has a 2026 spending plan in place.
City Council members approved the city’s budget, which will see the ad valorem tax rate drop substantially from this year’s levy, at least in terms of mills needed to fill the city’s general fund.
The prolonged discussion included everything from code and law enforcement to a failed sales tax vote last November.
Approving the budget then required a revote after Council members nearly rejected the spending plan.
Heck, there was even a brief primer on parliamentary procedure to keep the audience on its toes.
By the time the dust settled, Council members approved a budget that would decrease the property tax levy from about 74 mills to 68.6 mills.
That means the owner of a $75,000 home will spend about $592 to support LaHarpe’s mill levy, a drop of about $48 or 7.5 percent from this year’s tax bill. (Of note, it does not include taxes spent for other governing districts, such as Allen County, USD 257 or Allen Community College.)
The city’s lower levy was essentially set in stone in June when Council members declined to budget more from property taxes than this year. Increasing that would have necessitated the city to send out a “Revenue Neutral Rate” (RNR) notice by the June 15 deadline.
And because LaHarpe’s assessed valuation has increased this year, it requires fewer mills to generate the same dollars, City Clerk Fred Works explained.
Hence the lower mill levy.
But even with his explanation, there remained some confusion amongst the Council members, who originally voted down the proposed budget, 3-1, before Works explained the RNR protocol.
“You’re limited to the budget you just voted down,” Works told the Council. “The mill levy gives you authority to spend. How you decide to spend it is what the Council’s for.
“You can move things around in the budget,” he continued. “You can’t raise any more dollars than what you just voted down.”
But because Mayor Mae Crowell never announced “the motion fails” during the discussion, it allowed Council members Cynthia Carr, Sharlyn Thompson and Angela Barker to change votes from “nay” to “aye’ without having to redo the entire budget notification process again. (A Register reporter questioned the revote, prompting Works’s response.)
Works noted the fallacy of setting the Revenue Neutral Rate deadline so early in the budget process.
“It’s a crazy rule because you don’t even get your valuations for the county until July,” he noted. “Yet you’ve got to tell the clerk by June if you’re going to exceed it. You can thank your legislators for that.
