Council holds first budget workshop
The Cape Coral City Council and the city’s Budget Review Committee met at the Nicholas Street Annex Tuesday for the first budget workshop to get the first formal look at the 2017 city budget, and they had to be pleased by two things they saw right off the bat.
They also had a lot of things that had to get squared away before getting together again on Thursday.
City Manager John Szerlag has proposed a budget that will actually be a little less than last year, while lowering the millage rate for the third time in four years.
The general budget will be $194,907,280, a decrease of more than $234,000 from 2016. Ad valorem will contribute $78.1 million of the total with a 6.75 millage, a reduction of .207 from last year, when it was 6.957.
Szerlag said the millage has dropped 15 percent since 2013 when the rate was 7.957. Property tax revenue will drop $2.4 million from last year.
The Public Service Tax will contribute $7.6 million, an increase of $400,000, and the Fire Service Assessment another $21.8 million, an increase of $2.2 million.
The city will also use a fund balance of $8.3 million, leaving it with $31.557 million in reserves, enough for the city to run on for 2.57 months.
Including everything, from debt service to capital projects, the total budget comes to $698, 189,616.
Among the highlights of the budget include an extra $100,000 to continue street light enhancements, and $6.5 million for local road resurfacing, as well as 17 new full-time positions at a cost of $791,000.
There is also $306,000 for median improvements, $510,000 for alley paving and $710,000 for capital maintenance of parks and government facilities.
Other big items are the nine new firefighters that will be coming into the new Station No. 11, set to open in the fourth quarter next year. The hope for Fire Chief Donald Cochran is that it will improve the response times for his firefighters, which has been abysmal in recent years.
“Response times are a big reason for Station No. 11. It’s out first station since 2006,” Cochran said. “There’s no more low-hanging fruit. We have to do this.”
There were also some questions about the budget. Councilmember Richard Leon said it was a great time to bring them up.
“Some of the council members want to talk about the maintenance building and whether the FSA or the PST should be lowered and where to set the millage,” Leon said. “When we get that figured out or what we need to cut, we’ll be O.K.”
Szerlag also proposed a rollback rate (which he did not recommend) of 6.5702, which would reduce revenues by $2.1 million, meaning they would have to cut that much in spending or further deplete the fund balance, which the city manager does not want to get under 2 months.
What does it mean to the average homeowner? About $939.15 per year in taxes for someone with a home assessed at $150,000 and a taxable value of $100,000.
The cost for services in Cape Coral is $1,433, which is second among the six cities that closest resemble the city: North Port, Fort Myers, Fort Lauderdale, Port St. Lucie and Coral Springs.
“It was a good budget hearing. The details are coming out pretty clear and the staff has done a great job making sure expenses are where they need to be,” Leon said. “
The second budget workshop will be Thursday at 1 p.m. at the Nicholas Street Annex.