The Dubuque City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to adopt the City’s budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2027, which begins on July 1, 2026. The city property tax rate for Dubuque will remain at $10.0632 per $1,000 of taxable valuation, the lowest rate among Iowa’s 11 cities with populations over 50,000.

The city council had previously voted to raise the residential property tax rate 1%, to $10.1648, during an initial budget public hearing. Through the budget process, City staff identified revenue and savings opportunities and revised the recommended budget to maintain the current property tax rate.

Due to increases in property values based on home sale prices, maintaining the current rate will result in a $17.56 (1.97%) increase in the city portion of the average residential property owner’s tax bill next year. The average Dubuque residential property has an assessed value of $213,211, for which the city portion of next year’s property tax bill would be $906.76.

Commercial Property Impact

Industrial Property Impact

The City’s total operating budget for FY 2027 will be $184.5 million, and its capital budget will be $80.6 million. As required by state law, the City’s budget is balanced, with expenses not exceeding revenues.

Property taxes will generate an estimated $31.6 million in revenue for the City’s general fund for non-utility departments and programs/services in FY 2027, more than 50% of the revenue needed for general fund expenditures. Nearly 44% of FY 2027 general fund expenditures will support public safety, almost 19% for culture and recreation, 17% for general government activities, and over 8% for public works.

Also included in the adopted budget is the City’s five-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP). In FY2027, the City will spend approximately $80.6 million on capital improvement projects, including:

• sanitary sewer improvements ($12.2 million),
• Five Flags Center improvements ($2.75 million),
• Historic Federal Building renovations ($1.3 million),
• stormwater projects ($1.3 million), and
• parking ramp maintenance ($1 million).

The FY 2027 budget includes several user fee increases for City utilities/services, including solid waste collection, water, sanitary sewer, and stormwater. These departments are defined as enterprise funds, and must collect user fees to cover the functions of delivering those utilities/services. The fees for sanitary sewer and stormwater will each increase by 9%, solid waste collection by 8%, and the water fee will go up 3%. The average resident will see a total monthly increase of $6.77 as a result of these increases. Despite the increases, Dubuque’s fees for these services will remain comparable to the averages among Iowa’s largest cities with similar services.

The adopted budget also continues the City’s general fund reserve policy, which calls for maintaining a general fund cash reserve fund balance of $25.4 million in FY 2027. The purpose of the reserve is for emergency/unforeseen expenses and to maintain a high credit rating for favorable interest rates when borrowing for major capital projects.

In addition to Dubuque having the lowest city property tax rate among Iowa’s 11 largest cities, the average of those 11 cities is 53% higher than Dubuque’s rate and the highest rate of those cities is 116% higher than Dubuque.

The City of Dubuque’s budget process began in late March with a public hearing to establish the maximum property tax levy for FY2027. The recommended budget was presented to the council in early April and was followed by seven budget public meetings to review individual department and division budgets. The final step was the council’s vote to adopt the budget at a public hearing held Tuesday.

Additional information about the City of Dubuque’s FY 2027 budget, including a Dubuque residential property tax calculator, can be found at cityofdubuque.org/FY2027Budget