Staff recommends that the City Council hold the public hearing and approve the resolution setting the mill levy rates for GO Bonds and Public Safety II levy for FY21.

This resolution sets the FY21 City property tax mills for the Public Safety II Levy (PS II) at 60.00 mills, General Obligation Debt Service Streets at 1.59 mills, General Obligation Debt Service Library at 5.44 mills and General Obligation Debt Service Series A Baseball Stadium at 3.45 mills. These levies are based on the certified taxable valuation from the Montana Department of Revenue.  The table below shows a comparison to last year's mills. On 6/22/2020 the City Council approved 109 mills per the City of Billings Charter.  The total mills levied by the City of Billings for FY21 are 179.48 mills compared to 160.02 mills for FY20. The revenue generated by setting the GO mills is consistent with the revenue projected in the FY21 budget, adopted by City Council on 6/22/2020. The revenue generated by the 60 mills from Public Safety II will generate approximately $4 million more than what was anticipated in the FY21 budget. The GO debt mills generate enough revenue to pay the principal and interest expense on the debt. Lowering the number of mills would result in not paying the debt service payment or borrowing money to make the debt service payment.  The final debt payment for the GO Parks Mill Levy has been made, so no mill levy is needed for FY21. The library levy will need to increase slightly as the annual $300,000 donation from the Library Foundation will complete this year. The voters approved to repeal and replace the $8.2 million cap for Public Safety II and shall now assess 60.00 mills to all properties within the City of Billings.
                    FY21      FY20
PS II               60.00   40.17
GO Parks            -----   0.57
GO Streets        1.59   1.82
GO Library         5.44   4.66
GO Ballpark       3.45   3.80
Total                70.48  51.02

City Council may:

• Approve, or;
• Disapprove, which would result in not making the debt service payments or using General Fund reserves to make debt service payments for FY21.

These mills are set in order to generate the necessary revenues to make the debt service payments for General Obligation (GO) Debt and fund Public Safety II (PS II) as authorized by the City Charter.  The total FY21 of 70.48 mills will generate $14,344,219 in tax revenue, as compared to the FY20 mills of 51.02, which generated $10,171,572 in tax revenue. If approved the median home valued at $211,000 will pay $511.25 in City taxes in 2021, compared to $455.82 in 2020.