Iowa Code § 331.434 — IA Code / Title IX / Chapter 331 / Section 331.434
County budget — notice and hearing — appropriations.
Status: in_force

Annually, the board of each county, subject to section 331.403, subsection 4, sections 331.423 through 331.425, the applicable portions of chapter 24, and other applicable state law, shall prepare and adopt a budget, certify taxes, and provide appropriations as follows:

(1) The budget shall show the amount required for each class of proposed expenditures, a comparison of the amounts proposed to be expended with the amounts expended for like purposes for the two preceding years, the revenues from sources other than property taxation, and the amount to be raised by property taxation, in the detail and form prescribed by the director of the department of management. For each county that has established an urban renewal area, the budget shall include estimated and actual tax increment financing revenues and all estimated and actual expenditures of the revenues, proceeds from debt and all estimated and actual expenditures of the debt proceeds.

(2) Not less than twenty days before the date that a budget must be certified under section 24.17 and not less than ten days before the date set for the hearing under subsection 3 of this section, the board shall file the budget with the auditor. The auditor shall make available a sufficient number of copies of the budget to meet the requests of taxpayers and organizations and have them available for distribution at the courthouse or other places designated by the board.

(3) Following, and not until, the requirements of section 24.2A are completed, the board shall set a time and place for a public hearing on the budget before the final certification date and shall publish notice of the hearing not less than ten nor more than twenty days prior to the hearing in the county newspapers selected under chapter 349. A summary of the proposed budget and a description of the procedure for protesting the county budget under section 331.436, in the form prescribed by the director of the department of management, shall be included in the notice. Proof of publication of the notice under this subsection 3 shall be filed with and preserved by the county auditor. A levy is not valid unless and until the notice is published and individual statements under section 24.2A are mailed. The department of management shall prescribe the form for the public hearing notice for use by counties.

(4) At the hearing, a resident or taxpayer of the county may present to the board objections to or arguments in favor of any part of the budget.

(5) (a) After the hearing, the board shall adopt by resolution a budget and certificate of taxes for the next fiscal year and shall direct the auditor to properly certify and file the budget and certificate of taxes as adopted. The board shall not adopt a tax in excess of the estimate published, except a tax which is approved by a vote of the people, and a greater tax than that adopted shall not be levied or collected. A county budget and certificate of taxes adopted for the following fiscal year becomes effective on the first day of that year.

(5) (b) If the budget to be approved pursuant to paragraph “a” contains any increase in compensation from the county budget for the prior fiscal year for one or more elective county offices, the board shall first adopt a separate detailed resolution to specifically approve any such increase for inclusion in the budget.

(6) The board shall appropriate, by resolution, the amounts deemed necessary for each of the different county officers and departments during the ensuing fiscal year. Increases or decreases in these appropriations do not require a budget amendment, but may be provided by resolution at a regular meeting of the board, as long as each class of proposed expenditures contained in the budget summary published under subsection 3 of this section is not increased. However, decreases in appropriations for a county officer or department of more than ten percent or five thousand dollars, whichever is greater, shall not be effective unless the board sets a time and place for a public hearing on the proposed decrease and publishes notice of the hearing not less than ten nor more than twenty days prior to the hearing in the county newspapers selected under chapter 349.

(7) (a) A county may collect taxes for a fiscal year for which no budget has been certified, but the county shall not distribute any funds collected for a fiscal year until the county certifies its budget and transmits the certified budget to the county auditor.

(7) (b) Taxes levied by a county whose budget is certified after April 30 shall be limited to the taxes levied for the previous fiscal year subject to applicable levy rate limits in this chapter. However, that amount shall not exceed the amount the county could collect based on property assessments for the fiscal year for which the county failed to certify property taxes.

(7) (c) The department of management may waive the limitation in paragraph “b” for a county if the department of management finds, after a showing of evidence by the county, that failure to certify the budget by April 30 was caused by one or more of the following:

(7) (c) A newspaper failed to publish a notice of hearing as required under section 24.2A after the county gave the newspaper sufficient time to publish the notice.

(7) (c) A verifiable public emergency or weather-related event which forced the cancellation of a public hearing as required under section 24.2A.

(7) (c) An illness or unexpected vacancy of one or more board members caused a lack of a quorum necessary to hold a hearing as required under section 24.2A.

(7) (c) A failure of state software or a state process caused the board to miss the required date to certify the county’s budget.

83 Acts, ch 123, §18, 209; 86 Acts, ch 1245, §114; 91 Acts, ch 164, §1; 97 Acts, ch 206, §16, 17, 24; 2007 Acts, ch 186, §3; 2012 Acts, ch 1124, §7, 8; 2015 Acts, ch 55, §2; 2019 Acts, ch 165, §6 – 9, 17; 2023 Acts, ch 71, §6, 10, 81 – 84, 98; 2024 Acts, ch 1094, §38, 47