The proposed $22.3 million budget up for consideration by the Vero Beach City Council this week maintains the same tax rate as last year, provides for no employee raises and leaves major projects like road paving and drainage improvements largely unfunded.
City Manager Jim O’Connor said his orders were “to bring back a balanced budget this year,” on the heels of a proposed 38 percent tax hike last year that was whittled down to the 24 percent finally approved by the Vero City Council. But just because the city staff did what they were told does not mean this round of budget negotiations will be immune to heated scraps over where to allocate funds.
That debate began in earnest Monday afternoon when the city’s Finance Commission examined the budget for three hours, the group adjourning quite concerned about the city’s priorities this year.
Hoping to shift dollars away from recreation – which key members consider a nonessential service – and toward infrastructure and employee retirement benefits, they voted 4-0 to have Recreation Director Rob Slezak identify which of the $420,000 in his department’s capital improvements are matters of health and safety, and which are of a more aesthetic nature and can be put off.
“Our community wants first and foremost the police department, it’s an untouchable,” Finance Commission Vice Chair Glenn Brovant said. “But there’s a non-government function, recreation. We spend 10 percent of our budget on recreation and the streets don’t get paved.
“The only reason I attack the recreation department is because the numbers are so glaring,” Brovant said of the $2.1 million annual recreation operating budget and $420,000 set aside for bricks and mortar repairs. “It’s the only sort-of discretionary spending we have.”
Councilman Randy Old rose to the podium to defend recreation spending. “The recreation is an expense, but it does create revenue with the beaches. Having the guarded beaches does bring revenue in the tourism.”
Councilman Dick Winger’s two pet projects, roads and stormwater, made a pretty anemic showing in the budget and presumably Winger will have something to say about that during the three-day workshops which conclude Friday.
By the end of the day Friday, the city will need to set its maximum tax rate so Property Appraiser David Nolte can send Truth In Millage (TRIM) notices out in August. Even if Vero doesn’t raise the tax rate from the current $2.38 per $1,000 of taxable value, the city will still see an influx of $287,000 more in tax dollars due to a 5.1 percent projected increase in property values in the city.
In recent years, as the tax rate has crept up from $1.93 per $1,000, the city’s total property tax collected has also risen from just less than $4 million to an expected $5.9 million in receipts for the 2016-2017 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
This year’s budget reflects a loss of 18 full-time employees in the electric utility due to the shuttering and demolition of the Big Blue power plant, but factors in the addition of five positions in other divisions of the electric utility for a net reduction of 13 employees.
In departments other than electric, nine positions are being added, resulting in a total net city employee reduction of four jobs.
No positions are being added this year in the police department, which has a payroll of 76 people. Public works is the next largest department with 73 people.
The drop from 394 positions to 390 positions is listed in the budget as a savings of $569,000 in the coming year, but that figure does not factor in the separation costs for 13 electric utility employees. Longtime employees typically retire with huge banks of saved-up sick and vacation time for which they are paid in cash upon their departure.
The budget could look quite different on Friday afternoon, once members of the public file up to the podium to speak about how and where they want to see tax dollars spent, and after council members weigh in.
The meetings run through Friday in the council chambers at Vero Beach City Hall.
They will be televised and live-streamed on the Internet at www.covb.org.
