- February 7, 2025
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After weeks of discussion and two public hearings, the Port Orange city council has approved a final millage rate of 4.4881 mills per $1,000 of valuation.
The finalized rate is for fiscal year 2018, which goes from Oct. 1, 2017 to Sept. 30, 2018. The current rollback rate is 4.1945.
This millage rate was changed from the 4.5673 mills that was approved as a tentative rate during the previous city council meeting. The newly set rate, approved during the Tuesday, Sept. 19 city council meeting, was passed in a 3-2 vote with Councilman Drew Bastian and Mayor Don Burnette voting against it.
The approved rate of 4.4881 is a 6.99% increase above the rolled-back rate and is "the percentage increase in property taxes adopted by the city council for general government operating and capital purposes," according to the city agenda.
In order for the council to reduce the rate from 4.5673 to 4.4881, the budget will have to be reduced by $222,642. Vice Mayor Bob Ford and Councilman Chase Tramont had previously voted against the millage rate of 4.5673.
Ford suggested freezing the hiring of new personnel in order to allocate funds toward storm cleanup.
"I think that there was a need for some additional spending for employee salaries, but this goes far beyond that," Ford said. "This is too much of an increase."
Ford made a motion to freeze all new positions in the budget for this coming year. This was also passed in a 3-2 vote.
Councilman Drew Bastian voiced concerns about not adding new positions, reminding the council about the developing Riverwalk Park and that it will need to be maintained.
"There's going to be an increased demand for services, public safety wise and otherwise," Bastian said. "And by not having the employees on board in public safety to handle these additional requests we're going to be crippling our departments."
There were not changes to the final capital budget, which passed in a 5-0 vote.
Amendment changes were also made to the final millage rate and final operating budget for Town Center Community Redevelopment Agency Tax Increment District. The Town Center millage rate was passed 3-2 while the operating budget passed 5-0.
Additionally, the council approved the amended final property tax millage rate and the amended final operating budget for the Eastport Community Redevelopment Agency Tax Increment District.
"We saw a lot of disagreement up here, but I believe that you saw gentlemen respectfully disagreeing and coming to some type of a consensus," Tramont said. "And respectful disagreement in this day and age — pretty rare.
