MOUNT AYR — A petition to protest the Sun Valley Rural Improvement Zone (RIZ) 2013 fiscal year budget was denied by the State of Iowa Appeal Board April 18.
The petition was received by the Ringgold County Auditor and forwarded on to the State Appeal Board.
The petitioners five objections to the Sun Valley RIZ 2013 fiscal year adopted budget were:
• The Sun Valley RIZ does not levy a standby tax as required by Iowa Code 357H.8.
• The Sun Valley RIZ carryover balance is in excess of 200 percent of the budgeted expenditures for fiscal year 2013.
• Iowa Department of Management Form 644 SS/RIZ has no actual fund balance.
• Sun Valley RIZ has no data line in the Iowa Department of Management Taxable (IDOM) Valuation list.
• Sun Valley RIZ is improperly constituted as a TIF and therefore incremental value deductions in the taxable valuation list are incorrect.
The petitioners asked that the debt certification by the RIZ board for fiscal year 2013 be disallowed as an issue of TIF entitlement, IDOM taxable valuation list be corrected to reflect the addition of valuation for all applicable data lines and tax levies for each of those entities be reduced to affect the same revenue collection from a larger taxable valuation.
The Iowa State Board of Appeal denied the request because verification of the signatures on the petition revealed an insufficient number of individuals who reside in, or own property in, the Sun Valley RIZ.
The required number of signatures needed to protest the Sun Valley RIZ budget was not met, therefore a protest hearing will not be scheduled.