Property taxes down, Alachua reduces budget

 Although the subject of considerable criticism over financial woes in recent months, the City of Alachua is planning to keep its property tax rate at 5.500 mills, the same as last year. 

Dropping property values means the city would have had to increase taxes to the “rollback rate” of 5.9635 mills to generate the same amount of property tax revenue as it had last year.  Instead of moving the tax rate up, the city commission and administration opted to cut the budget by the more than $351,000 that it lost as a result of falling property values.

Alachua City Manager Traci Cain said the reason for not increasing the millage rate to the “rollback rate” was to offer tax relief in the current economic climate.

Although the city is facing reduced revenues in the upcoming year, officials are budgeting a $350,000 contribution to its debt service reserves, an account which garnered the attention of auditors earlier this year due to its lack of adequate funding.

In a 4-1 vote, commissioners approved the city’s proposed 2010/11 fiscal year budget at $36,897,118, almost $10 million less than the 2009/10 fiscal year budget which was $46,063,110.

Commissioner Robert Wilford cast the lone dissenting vote Monday.  He later commented that he felt a $20,000 allocation should be made in the budget for Rebuilding Together, an organization that would help repair homes in the area.  A representative from the organization said the goal would be to fix at least five homes in Alachua using volunteer help from mostly high school students traveling from Alabama, Georgia and other areas of Florida.

Wilford made a motion to include the funds in the budget, but no other commissioner supported that move which ultimately died for a lack of a second.

Among the cuts made to budget was funding for a long-running summer recreation program.  Cain said there were many opportunities for recreation over the summer at many of the city’s public facilities and through public/private partnerships that did not exist several years ago when the recreation program began.

The city budgets an expense of $30,000 and matching revenues of $30,000 for the program, but Cain said upon further computation, the city found that due to city staff labor, the result was significantly higher costs to the city.

Also cut from the budget were employee fringe benefits, except for health, dental and vision coverage.  Finance Director Marcian Brown said cost of living adjustments (COLA) and merit pay increases have been eliminated from the budget. 

A second public hearing on the budget is set for Sept. 27.  The budget is set to take effect Oct. 1.