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2020 Budget

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To review the Adopted 2020 Budget document, please click here.

2020 Budget Update

October 15, 2019: Budget Presentation

City Manager Mark Freitag presented the proposed 2020 budget to the City Council. During that presentation, the City Council asked questions and asked for follow-up responses related to items in the proposed 2020 budget.

October 23, 2019: Second Budget Study Session

The City Council reconvened on October 23, 2019 to further discuss the proposed 2020 budget. At that time, the City Council were presented with staff's follow-up responses from items discussed at the first meeting or that staff received via email. After all responses were presented, the City Council recommended changes to the proposed 2020 budget via budget amendments. The City Council adopted a budget amendment to double the amount of time spent on downtown parking enforcement at a cost of $3,961..

November 11, 2019: Budget Public Hearing

Finance Director Max Gagin will present the City Council with updates to the proposed 2020 budget. The public hearing follows where individuals have the opportunity to share comments regarding the budget.

November 25, 2019: Budget Adoption

Finance Director Max Gagin will presented the City Council with updates to the proposed 2020 budget. The City Council will then consider the proposed 2020 budget for adoption.

2020 Budget Information & Budget Steps

Step One: Begin with a Budget
The process is similar to how you must budget your paycheck to pay for rent, food and clothing; you need to know where your money is coming from (revenues) and where it is going (expenditures). First, City of Janesville staff prepare a budget that details how much money (revenue) is needed to cover planned expenditures from the City's General Fund. The City’s proposed General Fund (excluding the Library) budget includes $52.7 million to pay for General Fund expenses in 2020. The General Fund is the City's primary operating fund. Activities such as police and fire protection, park maintenance, recreation, snow removal, street maintenance, and general administration are supported by the General Fund. The Hedberg Public Library's proposed 2020 budget totals $4.2 million. Your property taxes and non-property tax revenues are used to cover expenses from these funds.
 
Property taxes are the City's and Library's largest source of revenue, used to pay for library and city-provided services such as snow removal and police protection. More than half (66 percent) of the costs to administer City government and library services are paid for through your property taxes. The remaining non-property tax revenue comes from financial aid from the State of Wisconsin, user fees, permit fees, non-property taxes, interest, rents or fines.
 
Some services such as transit receive subsidies from the General Fund that only partially cover the cost of their activities. Thus, funding comes only partially from taxes; the rest comes from user fees. For example, additional revenue to fund the City's transit service comes from bus fares. You pay directly for how much bus service you use. The Water, Wastewater, and Stormwater Utilities are funded through utility charges and do not receive any assistance from property taxes - you are charged on your utility bill according to how much service you use.
  
Step Two: Calculate the "Property Tax Levy"

After determining how much revenue Janesville will receive from the State of Wisconsin and other non-property tax sources, we must make up the difference with property taxes. The property tax levy is the total amount of revenue needed from property taxes to cover General Fund and Library expenditures. Of the $56.9 million that the City of Janesville government and Library has budgeted to pay for expenses in 2020, $37.4 million will be raised through the property tax levy, $19.0 million will be raised through non-property tax revenues, and the approximate remaining $473,000 is covered by applied fund balance.

Step Three: Calculate the Property Tax Rate

To figure out the property tax rate you must know two things: the tax levy (just explained) and the City's total assessed value. Assessed value is the value of all Janesville properties for tax purposes and is determined by the City Assessor. The City's total estimated assessed value of real and personal property is $5.1 billion. Here is how to calculate the tax rate:

Tax levy (including TIF)/ Assessed value = property tax rate, or 

Proposed 2020 property tax rate = $39,292,112 / $5,053,272,400 = 0.0077756.

Tax rates are reported per $1,000 of assessed property value; therefore, the municipal tax rate is $7.7756.

Step Four: Calculate Your Tax Bill

To calculate the General City portion of your tax bill, a tax rate of $7.7756 means that for every $1,000 of property you own you are taxed $7.7756 for municipal programs and services. For example, a Janesville resident who owns a median assessed home of $147,600 will pay $1,148 in 2020 (($147,600/1,000) x $7.7756 = $1,048) for municipal programs and services such as snow removal and parks. But it will not educate your children or provide judicial services. Those services are paid for from the Janesville School District and Rock County portions of your tax bill.

Your Tax Bill: Four Different Jurisdictions

Your property tax bill adds together the tax levy of four different taxing jurisdictions. These taxing jurisdictions are the Janesville School District, the City of Janesville (including Hedberg Public Library), Rock County, and Blackhawk Technical College. Instead of requiring that you pay separate bills to each governmental unit, the levies from all four are combined into one bill for your convenience. After you pay your property tax bill, the money is divided and each taxing jurisdiction receives its share.

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