At the most recent Perry City Council meeting the Council approved the opposition of any phase out of what is commonly referred to as a “backfill”.

City Administrator Sven Peterson says when the legislature enacted the property tax rollback for commercial and industrial properties they told cities, counties and school districts a “backfill” payment of the property taxes that were lost would be available. 

“Each year the City of Perry receives just under $90,000 from the state in those backfill payments. So, we are really concerned about the state rolling those back and taking those away. Primarily for us it’s really just kind of a thing where they gave all cities a promise that this backfill will be here and they will do this backfill for the communities.”

Peterson says they had the city finance officer Susie Moorehead do a financial analysis to see what the impact could be for Perry. Peterson tells Raccoon Valley Radio there could be an impact on property taxes if the “backfill” payments were to go away.

“Just the debt service levy and the benefit levy, if we lost those backfill payments that would result in a twenty-six cent increase in property taxes directly attributed to the loss of that backfill. That’s also not taking into account the loss of the backfill into our general fund which could threaten a number of our departments.”

Peterson says among those departments that could be threatened include the public safety sector including police and fire departments among other areas. The bill relating to the backfill, Senate File 587, recently passed the Iowa Senate.