Commission laments lack of budget progress

MANATEE COUNTY — When it comes to their $563.9 net million budget, Manatee County commissioners share one sentiment: frustration.

As they voted Sept. 15 to adopt their tentative fiscal year 2016 budget and maintain an aggregate millage rate of 6.848, commissioners lamented the county had failed to find funding for indigent health care to avoid the use of reserves. 

Manatee County Administrator Ed Hunzeker has said the county will deplete its excess reserves, created from operating overages during the real estate boom, by FY2018 if the county continues its spending trends. For example, the budget includes the use of about $14 million in those excess reserves annually to fund a portion of indigent health care costs, which historically have been funded by a health care trust that will run out in 2018.

Although commissioners will formally adopt the budget and millage rates Sept. 22, their grievances will not be addressed by that time.

“For me, this budget cycle has been very frustrating,” said District 5 Commissioner Vanessa Baugh, who opposed the budget with Commissioner Robin DiSabatino. “For over a year, we have talked about how a new plan needed to be done for health care… Nothing changed. That’s one of the main reasons I didn’t vote for the budget. We have to start living within our means.”

Baugh said the county relies too heavily on excess reserves, especially when considering property tax revenues are up by about $14 million annually.

DiSabatino agreed.

“We’re not bringing in money to pay for the services,” she said. “What happens in three years? We have no money. We’re going to have to start cutting severely now or find other funding streams.”

Commission Chairwoman Betsy Benac said the board is making “Band-Aid” fixes and will have explore options for diversifying revenue streams away from property taxes, a concept Hunzeker proposed about three years ago, but never came to fruition. Options could include raising the millage or implementing an infrastructure surtax, like the one in Sarasota County, and a separate storm water fee, which currently is included in solid waste fees.

“We need to start on it as soon as possible,” Benac said. “It doesn’t work if you wait until budget time.”

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].