News

Alderman wants mills reduced for taxpayers

By Scott Wagar

01/22/2013

Bottineau Alderman, Tim Sanderson, is working toward reducing the city’s mill levy as a member of the city’s financial committee because he feels that Bottineau has a surplus of money, which causes local residents to have a bigger tax burden then they should have.

“The surplus of money in December’s year end meeting was almost a half million dollars, which we moved into various accounts,” Sanderson said. “I don’t mind putting some money away, but we shouldn’t be putting huge amounts of money away. I feel that if we are at a surplus level, and it starts at the state level, then the county level and then the city level, why are we taking money away from our people in tough times.”

Sanderson stated that the majority of the city’s surplus comes from the oil and gas fund and local sale taxes.

“We are only using $150,000 out of the oil and gas fund, but that fund keeps going up and up and up, and we are transferring it to the general reserve and then into other accounts at our year end meetings,” Sanderson said. “And, our sales tax revenue is just sky rocketing, too. Every business is improving in sale tax and Walmart is like a gold mine for us.”

With a half million dollar surplus in the city’s funds, and plenty of money to maintain the city’s needs, Sanderson is confused as to why the taxpayers are paying so much money into taxes in the city of Bottineau.

With the surplus, he stated that he is looking into reducing taxes through lowering the mill levy, in the 2014 budget.

“We can’t do it now for 2013 budget because it has already been approved, but I am going to do everything I can to reduce the mills for 2014.”

He is also looking into obtaining reimbursement checks for the tax payers in Bottineau due to the extra taxes they have recently paid to keep the mill levy where it is currently at.

Outside of reducing mills and trying to make sure local tax payers receive reimbursement checks, Sanderson is also going to attempt to get surcharges that are added to the city’s billings to be stopped for a period of time to assist the local residents of the town.   

In the January city council meeting, Mayor Ben Aufforth stated even though property taxes increased on its true and full value, the mill levy had to stay were it was at due to a number of reasons.

“We knew in July going into the budget that the value of the mills was higher with all the projects that are scheduled and the anticipation of some development,” Aufforth said. “With that, we elected not to reduce our mills. So, we actually gained a little more money over last year, but with the extra projects we had, there was money we had to spend. There was equipment that needed upgrading; there was money from one fund we had to return to another fund; the local fire sirens in town were in poor condition and the appraisal is coming up. So, right now we are looking at if things work out we probably will be sitting pretty well come 2014,” Aufforth said. “And, we may be able to do something with the mills at that time.”
Sanderson stated he didn’t feel it wasn’t necessary to keep the mills where they were at for the 2013 budget due to the surplus of money from oil and gas and sale tax revenue.

“We have plenty of money in all the funds for upcoming projects in town, more than enough,” he said. “When we have a surplus, say like in the oil and gas fund, we should be leaving it there because there is surplus money there. And, when extra or unusual things request for money comes up we can take it out of there. We are not hurting anyone by doing this, and all other accounts are covered, but we as a council are being told by the city office it all has to be moved out and into accounts. There is not one person on this council that understands this bookkeeping system.         

“By law, the city has to do certain things with the money in the budget,” Sanderson added. “But, we have no business in having these huge surpluses at all three levels of government and taxing more money from the people. We can use that surplus and cut our mill rate. The county did it on their mill rate, but we didn’t and we got caught flat footed. If we did that before this tax thing came out, we’ve might have been able to stop it.”

For now, Sanderson is going to continue on working on reducing the mill rate with one goal in mind, making sure tax payers will be able to keep more of their earned money one way or other.