Town sets max millage rate

By Kurt Schultheis
| 4:00 a.m. July 13, 2011

Longboat Key
News

What a difference seven hours makes.

At a Monday, July 11, budget workshop that concluded just before noon, the Longboat Key Town Commission sent a strong message to Town Manager Bruce St. Denis that it did not want to set its maximum millage rate any higher than its current millage rate of 1.8872 mills for fiscal year 2011-12 budget, which begins Oct. 1.

But at the Town Commission regular meeting that evening, the commission had changed its mind.
It voted 4-3 to set the maximum millage rate at 1.946 mills, which will cover a $265,000 budget deficit.
Mayor Jim Brown and Vice Mayor David Brenner told the rest of the commission they had changed their minds on holding the line on the maximum millage rate, but said that the ultimate goal is to create a balanced budget without raising the current millage rate.

“I think we made a mistake this morning,” Brown said. “We are putting ourselves into a bind if something comes up between now and September. We can always bring the millage rate down. But if something comes up and we limit ourselves, we are creating a problem for ourselves.”

Brenner agreed.

“We are not increasing anything tonight,” Brenner said. “We would be foolish to limit ourselves tonight. The goal is still to get to 1.8872 mills.”

Brown, Brenner and Commissioners Hal Lenobel and Pat Zunz voted for the higher maximum millage rate.

Commissioners Phillip Younger, Lynn Larson and Jack Duncan voted against the increase.

Earlier in the day, Younger said St. Denis’ proposal of $307,746 in budget cuts in training and travel for town staff and commissioners, the elimination of several annual membership fees to various organizations and the elimination of the town’s annual March election was “designed to fail.”

“We did not put anything before you, commissioner, that’s designed to fail,” St. Denis said.

Duncan, however, agreed with Younger.

“The budget revisions presented pointed to painful areas in an attempt to avoid the pain altogether,” Duncan said. “I still think there are other areas that can reduce costs dramatically. We need to be more frugal, and attorneys don’t need to be at every meeting.”

Duncan suggested reducing attorney fees and the commission contingency fund.

“Those types of budget items would give us back $250,000 right there,” Duncan said.

Younger agreed and presented a spreadsheet of $200,015 in suggested savings.

The chart showed that the actual amount the town has been spending in the past five fiscal years was less than what St. Denis had budgeted and presented to the commission.

“The town manager increased line items by approximately $150,000 over last year’s budget,” Younger said. “My suggestion is to return these to a more modest level.”

At the evening meeting, St. Denis again asked commissioners to consider voting in favor of the higher millage rate.

“I recommend you set a maximum millage rate higher than the current rate to give yourself flexibility if anything comes up,” St. Denis said. “If anything does come up, we are putting ourselves in a box and would then have to find another funding source to cover it.”

Although the commission won’t officially set the millage rate until September, Monday’s vote put a cap on how high the millage rate can be raised before a new 2011-12 budget is adopted.

The maximum millage rate selected will be included in the estimated property tax bills that the county tax collectors’ offices mail out in August.