Dubuque City Council Adopts Fiscal Year Budget Increases

According to the City of Dubuque website and social page; the Dubuque City Council adopted the City’s operating budget and five-year capital improvement program (CIP) budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, which runs July 1st of 2023, to June 30th of 2024.

 The total budget is $237,525,419, which includes a $160,971,276 operating budget and a $76,554,143 capital budget. The budget was adopted at a public hearing on Thursday, March 23rd.

“This budget allows Dubuque to maintain some of the lowest rates and fees among peer Iowa cities while making significant investments in critical infrastructure, programs, facilities, and the retention and recruitment of quality staff."

-Brad Cavanagh, Dubuque Mayor 

The FY2024 five-year CIP budget of $76.6 million is a 10.5% increase from the current year. The five-year plan includes over $31 million for sanitary sewer improvements, $24 million to improve Five Flags Civic Center, close to $9 million for traffic capacity improvements to the East-West Corridor, $4.8 million for fire station expansion and relocation, and $1.3 million for the Central Avenue Streetscape Master Plan.

This budget includes over $32 million in loans to replace the lead water service lines at nearly 3,300 homes. This uses $29 million of forgivable loans funded by the federal and state government.

Operating budget includes wage increases of 6% for sworn staff in the police and fire departments and 9-1-1 dispatchers and 5% increases for all other collective bargaining agreements and non-represented employees. This is to support employee recruitment and retention efforts in a highly competitive labor market.

The new budget allows the City to maintain a General Fund Cash Reserve of $29.7 million in FY2024, nearly 42% of the City’s projected revenue and more than double the goal of 20%.

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Property Tax

The city portion of the Dubuque property tax rate for FY2024 will be $9.9014 per thousand dollars of assessed value, a $0.19 or 1.9% increase over FY2023. This will result in a 2.94% ($23.25) cost increase for the average residential property owner, a 8.77% ($268.52) cost increase for the average commercial property owner, and a 6.55% ($296.26) cost increase for the average industrial property owner.

Water

The monthly fee for the average residential water customer (6,000 gallons) will increase from $33.18 to $35.82, an 8% increase.

Sanitary Sewer

The monthly fee for the average residential customer (6,000 gallons) will increase from $47.82 to $50.22, a 6% increase.

Curbside Collection The basic monthly fee for curbside collection will increase from $15.38 to $15.83 in FY2024, a 2.93% increase.

Storm Water

The monthly base fee for the average residential property will increase from $9 to $10, an 11.1% increase. Of the 10 largest cities with storm water utilities, Dubuque will have the second highest.

Comparisons in budget costs across other Iowa municipalities can be found at this website.

In addition, the City of Dubuque offers income-qualified residential customers a reduction in monthly fees for all four City utilities of up to 50% of the base rate, but you must apply.