Shoreacres City Council holds line on tax rate

As I noted earlier, the Shoreacres City Council held a special meeting last night. Included on the agenda was a discussion of Mayor Webber’s proposed budget and setting the new property tax rate. Two members were absent: Mayor Pro-tem Rick Moses and Alderman Mike Wheeler.

I said yesterday that I have no idea what this council thinks about tax hikes. Now I know – they don’t like them. In fact, they went further than most councils will go – they adopted the same rate as last year ($0.844381/$100), eschewing the new Effective Tax Rate ($0.890690/$100), effectively lowering taxes for the city as a whole. Which didn’t please the Mayor but it sure made my day.

Although they didn’t have to, the council handed out copies of the proposed budget to the four citizens in attendance, for which I was very appreciative. It is too long to scan, perhaps it will be on the website soon. They also handed out a one page overview that I did scan:

Shoreacres 2013/14 Proposed Budget Overview

As you can see, the Mayor proposed an “Combined Funds” budget increase of 3.9{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}. Alderman Nancy Schnell was adamant that there were line items that could be eliminated or cut, specifically questioning the need to purchase a new vehicle for Public Works. The Mayor said that he had reduced the request from Public Works from two vehicles to one but Schnell was having none of it, asking why each worker needs their own vehicle. She suggested alternatives, such as purchasing another small utility vehicle. Alderman Bo Bunker was relatively quiet but was going through the budget line items and found a calculation error.

Alderman Steve Jones made the comparison to a family cutting their expenditures after receiving a salary cut, saying that our property has been reduced in value and we need to cut spending. He was very passionate about not raising taxes and spending within the city’s means. At one point, the Mayor said that council was free to cut a police officer if they wanted to. How many times have you heard a politician try to scare the public by immediately suggesting that public safety will be compromised if you don’t raise taxes? Jones wouldn’t take the bait and made a motion to keep the old tax rate and work to find $42,212.41 in cuts over the next three weeks. Schnell seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

There will be a public presentation of the proposed budget at the regular city council meeting on September 23rd and then a Public Hearing to adopt a budget on September 30th.

After the turmoil of recent meetings, it was great to see the council working smoothly together. The discussion was very informative and shed light on a lot issues that I was unaware of. I’ve noted that citizen Gerry Victor has been a watchdog of the city’s reserve fund but I didn’t understand exactly why – we are deficit funding the city and City Administrator David Stall warned the council that at the current rate we will have no reserve fund in two years. In addition, there is a major expense looming that will require the city to issue bonds to fund – our water tower has to be replaced, sooner rather than later. I had no idea. Alderman Jones wants to cut spending and start building a fund to pay for the tower replacement but I don’t see how that is possible if we are already pulling funds from our reserves for the annual budget. I hope he figures it out because I do not want the city to float bonds if there is any other possible way to get this done.

Even with the $42k in cuts, the budget will still increase. I don’t understand how or why anyone would propose a budget increase knowing that we are already “deficit financing”  by pulling from the reserve fund. That must be immediately addressed if we are going to be able to survive in the future.

I recorded the session and if you live in Shoreacres, it will be worth an hour of your time to listen. Stall gives an good overview of the ETR process and goes almost line by line through the budget. You will also hear his warning about pulling from the reserve fund. Plus, you can hear your council members standing up for you!

Click here to listen if the player doesn’t show up.