The Waterloo City Council on Monday night approved a property tax levy increase for the current fiscal year during its final regular meeting of 2025.

The proposed corporate and special purpose property taxes to be levied for 2025 are $1,886,500, representing a 4.9 percent increase from the 2024 levy request of $1,807,500. 

Last year’s request was a 5.31 percent increase, thus requiring a “Truth in Taxation” hearing be held since it was over 5 percent of the prior year’s levy.

City budget officer/collector Sarah Craig explained during an ordinance committee held prior to Monday’s regular council gathering that the Consumer Price Index “cost of living” or inflation percentage to use in computing the 2025 tax levy is 2.9 percent, which only applies to existing properties and does not take growth into account.

Craig said she added 2 percent to account for this growth based on recent history.

“The county would typically offer some kind of advice or guidance on growth,” Craig said during the committee meeting. “This year, they were unable to do that.”

Of the nearly $1.9 million requested to be raised for the fiscal year ending April 30, 2026, $930,000 is for the police pension fund and another $683,400 is for the library. 

The remaining amount is for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act to fund Social Security and Medicare, the corporate fund, the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, roads and bridges fund, and Waterloo Municipal Band.

The tax levy was unanimously approved.

Planned outage

Waterloo Public Works Director JR Landeck announced during Monday’s meeting that, weather permitting, a planned power outage will take place at 1 p.m. this coming Tuesday for required work in preparation for installing a new turbine generator at the city’s power plant.  

This outage will affect about half of the city, Landeck said, with an outage map available on the city’s website (waterloo.il.us) and Facebook page.

The length of this outage could be 2-3 hours, he added.

City officials have said this third turbine at the power plant is needed to further meet current and future electrical demands. It adds to the plant’s three Caterpillar generators and two turbines, which can be used interchangeably based on demand.

Other council news

During the Dec. 1 council meeting, aldermen approved group health insurance coverage with United Healthcare for city employees effective Jan. 1 with a 6 percent rate increase.

Alderman Gary Most, as chairman of the insurance committee, shared that his committee reviewed proposed health insurance rate hikes and said the previous provider sought a 20 percent increase. After obtaining competitive bids, United Healthcare offered the same coverage with a much smaller cost increase.