Rexburg revisits police bond with $3.9 Million cost cut to ease tax burden
Ariel Jensen
REXBURG, ID (KIFI) – Rexburg is once again talking about a new police station.
Rexburg police have outgrown their building, and tonight the city is making adjustments to reduce the cost for a new one by about 3.9 million.
In the last local election, the police bond got the majority vote, but not the super-majority required for a bond in Idaho.
Last month, people living in Rexburg were asked to take a survey to find out why the bond failed.
The top three reasons were that some people thought the tax impact was too high, the city should seek to reduce existing debt, and the city should take a phased approach to the project.
Matthew Nielson, Chief Finance Officer, tells Local News 8 that the city has no general obligation debt, but there is debt from school bonds and library bonds.
With the new ordinance that would put this on the ballot, you know, the things that we’re really trying to address is we’re trying to reduce the initial cost, which reduces the impact on property tax. And then we’re trying to defer when it would take effect. So that all of these other bonds that are impacting your property tax could have expired or removed. Right? And so we’re trying to reduce the tax impact on the resident,” said Nielson.
Tonight, Wedneday Febuary 4th, the city council is looking at putting the police bond on this May’s ballot.