VERO BEACH — The Vero Beach City Council has postponed and scaled back efforts to trim the city’s $19.3 million general fund budget, keeping the property tax rate low by continuing to balance the budget with nearly $7 million in transfers from the electric utility.
When budget talks began in early July, the city was set to begin doing without the electric transfers after an anticipated closing date to sell to Florida Power and Light in the spring of 2014. With delays related to the city’s long-term obligations with the Florida Municipal Power Agency dragging out the proceedings, the council instructed top staffers to assume the city would operate for the entire fiscal year from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30 with all the electric utility’s revenue intact.
Those changes necessitated another special call budget meeting last week. In the meantime, those with objections to specific cuts in the budget voiced concerns, attracting a string of public comments from the podium at that meeting.
When the budget was first published in late June, 43 positions were set to be cut in October, but during the July workshops the council decided to put 10 police dispatcher positions back in the budget, as well as cashier positions in the finance department to keep the utility payment windows open.
“The budget as originally presented on Tuesday had a reduction of 30 full time staff positions,” said Budget Director Cindy Lawson. “That reduction would now be 28 positions.”
One position in the City Clerk’s office and one position in the police department — that of Animal Control Officer, currently held by Bruce Dangerfield — were spared during the recent round of budget talks.
Lawson said all the changes made to the budget resulted in an $86,000 decrease of the city’s “unappropriated surplus.”
The city is still expected to operate at a surplus of at least $227,000, which is in addition to various reserve funds the city keeps for operating cash during emergencies such as a hurricane.
Property taxes are set to stay the same as 2012 at 2.0336 mills, or about $2.03 for every thousand dollars in taxable value. Property owners who have seen marked increases in their property values could notice a small increase in the City of Vero Beach portion of their tax bills.
State law requires two public hearings of the city budget before it is finalized. The first public hearing is set for 5:10 p.m. Sept. 3 in the Council Chambers at Vero Beach City Hall and will be televised on the city’s public access channel.
