Cut the levy
Set a smaller levy and choose the cuts in the adopted 2026 budget yourself. The sheriff contract and the debt levy are held constant.
Runs on the adopted payable-2026 budget: the local levy of $2,179,043 over $9,197,371 of tax capacity, the 23.69% city rate.
The target is to remove $233,279 from the 2026 budget. About $1,977,790 of the budget is open to cuts here once the sheriff contract and the debt levy are set aside.
To start, pick a cut for each category in the list below. The total updates as you go.
Changing the city’s policing model is outside this calculator. The city has investigated alternatives, and the current record shows the alternatives considered cost more.
The part of the certified 2026 levy set aside for bonds. This is the debt levy, not the city’s total bond payments of $488,413 across all funds. Special assessments and a transfer cover the rest of those payments, and reserves or other revenue can change how much the levy covers. Changing how debt is financed is outside this calculator.
Assumptions
Scenario, not forecast.
- This model assumes each dollar of spending cut removes a dollar of levy. That holds only if the cut leaves other revenue alone. Some cuts would also shrink permit fees, grants, reimbursements, or service charges tied to that work, and the levy saving would then be smaller.
- The sheriff contract and the debt levy are held constant, as noted above.
- Category totals are the adopted 2026 budget figures, read from the city’s budget book.
- Percent changes are measured against the certified levy. The rate effect applies the dollar change to the locally raised portion, because the fiscal-disparities distribution is set by the metro program, not the annual levy vote.
- For average-home and equivalent-home examples this page uses the official payable-2025 Department of Revenue homestead aggregate as a proxy ($6,555,471 of residential homestead tax capacity across 1,369 homesteads, about $4,789 each) applied to the payable-2026 levy and tax base. Treat it as a scale proxy, not a payable-2026 parcel count.
Method and sources
City tax rate equals the levy divided by the tax base. With the tax base held constant, a levy change moves the rate in proportion, and the average home's city tax moves with the rate. All sources and the full method