Sean C. Morgan
Funding problems are at the heart of what looks to be a tough slog this year for the city of Sweet Home.
“It’s going to be a challenging year,” said Mayor Craig Fentiman. “It’s going to be difficult and challenging in 2012.”
The mayor described some of the top issues the council will need to tackle.
“We definitely are going to find a stable funding source for the Police Department and library,” Fentiman said. Property tax compression is driving a revenue problem.
Compression is property tax revenue that is lost due to voter-approved property tax limitations. Property tax rates, more than $22 per $1,000 in Sweet Home, are applied to assessed values. The levy amount is then compared to each individual property’s real market value, and if the rate exceeds $10 per $1,000 the property taxes are decreased to a maximum of $10 per $1,000 for general government and $5 per $1,000 for education services.
Declining real market values mean that total property tax values decline as well. This fiscal year, the Sweet Home Police Department is receiving more than $780,000 less than were imposed by its local option levy.
Local option levies are the first type of property tax reduced by the property tax limitation. Permanent rates, such as the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District and the city’s general property tax, are unaffected until the local option levies are reduced to zero revenue.
The Sweet Home Police Department is completely funded by a local option levy, unlike most of the other law enforcement agencies in Oregon, which makes its funding more vulnerable to real estate price fluctuation.
The Sweet Home Public Library levy and Linn County Sheriff’s levy are also local option levies and affected first by the property tax limitation.
“There’s been discussion to try to figure out what we can do and what we can’t do,” Fentiman said. “Right at this point, it doesn’t look like a lot we can do other than forming a law enforcement district. That’s going to be biggest issue this year.”
Another challenge is trying to forge ahead and keep Sweet Home ready for any economic development that may come its way, Fentiman said. He anticipated talking about economic development more over the weekend as well as the idea of constructing a second flexible manufacturing building.
The city has one 10,000-square-foot flex building. The building is owned by the city and leased to businesses that meet criteria that include a minimum number of family wage jobs. It is currently occupied by Tech Edge.
Among Sweet Home’s problems is a lack of space. Ti Squared, located at Clark Mill and Main, will move to Lebanon this year because the growing company cannot find enough space locally.
Possibly, if Sweet Home had facilities that were large enough, it could have retained Ti Squared, Fentiman said.
Ti Squared started manufacturing titanium golf clubs in Sweet Home in 1995. It has since diversified into numerous other products and employs 61.
The city worked with Ti Squared to find a local solution, but all of it required construction, Fentiman said. It would have been nice to have space available.
“I would like to see us do that,” he said.
The city will continue rehabilitating its sewer system this year, Fentiman said. It will finish Phase IV of its inflow and infiltration reduction project.
Inflow and infiltration is storm water that leaks into the sewer system through deteriorating pipes or cross connection with storm drainage. During heavy rains, like last week, it can force the city’s Wastewater Treatment Plant to bypass heavily diluted but untreated wastewater into the South Santiam River.
The city is under a mandate from the Department of Environmental Quality to reduce I&I flow to prevent bypasses.
After finishing Phase IV, the city will need to study what the wastewater system is doing, and it will probably have to move from the collection system and improve the treatment plant, Fentiman said. So far, the city has spent more than $12 million closing the leaks in the sewer system, which has included city-owned mains and privately owned laterals.
He anticipates a tough year, Fentiman said.
“It’s just going to take a lot of hard work and perseverance.”