City Millage Increase, Budget Cuts Approved

More than $842,000 in additional cuts and a 0.0836 increase to the city's millage rate were approved 3-2 by the Sarasota City Commission on Tuesday night. 

The approved budget means the city will be using less of its reserve funds, but that still means it is spending $1.5 million in reserves for next year. 

A majority of the funding brought in by the additional millage will go toward funding the , Lido Pool and neighborhood parks within the city limits. Those costs are additional financial responsibilities for the city because of the new inter-local parks agreement with the county. 

City finance director Chris Lyons said the millage increase is needed because the two biggest parts of the budget,  and staff, are two things that the city does not want to cut. 

At its peak, Lyons said, the city employed more than 775 employees. Just a few years later, the number of city employees has decreased by 24 percent to less than 600 employees. 

Vice Mayor Terry Turner and commissioner Shannon Snyder voted against the millage hike and said the city needs to cut more, not tax more. 

"I think there is some more money in [this budget] that we could cut out," Snyder said. "We are better off doing it now."

"There are a number of items on this list that I think are luxuries we could eliminate that would not affect the quality of life in this city," Turner said. "I think at a minimum we owe it to the taxpayers [to] discuss them item by item."

Mayor Suzanne Atwell said the budget proposed by staff on Tuesday has a significant increase in the amount of cuts than the budget . 

"[The millage increase], does not go too far," Atwell said. She added that she does not share the same doom and gloom economic forecasts for the city because that negativity, she said, can be self-fulfilling. 

"I’m a fiscal conservative, but I'm not of the view that the sky is falling," she said. 

Turner said the millage, or tax hike, was unfair to citizens on the fence. "We increase that burden on the tax payer," he said. "People about to lose their house, low income and middle income [families] are really disadvantaged by this."

He said he does not agree with city staff's assumption that the millage increase just offsets the falling revenues from property taxes. That thinking, he said, creates a protective wall for the city that its citizens don't have. 

"I don’t think we should be raising the millage to protect our government at their expense," he said.  

Commissioner Paul Caragiulo said the city has made significant headway in reworking some of its employee policies. With the cuts, that was enough for him to approve the measure. 

"Nothing is more true than these employees costs are out of control, [but] I believe that reform is in place and on track to make pretty significant changes," he said. "At the end of the day I’m comfortable with staff’s recommendation."

Commissioner Willie Shaw said additional cuts to the city would cause more harm than a small tax increase. 

"We’ve cut ourselves 24 percent in four years and to cut ourselves any [more], we would bleeding all over the place," Shaw said. "That creates the bigger problem then raising the millage at this time."

Additional Cuts

• A three-month hiring freeze ($250,000)
• Eliminate citizen survey ($22,000)
• Reduce police panel ($32,000)
• Commissioners waiving health or dental insurance ($18,300)
• Reduce cost of senior internal auditor position ($18,500)