- October 29, 2024
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If the county government holds the General Fund operating tax rate flat at 8.0297 next year, it can expect an additional $12.2 million increase in revenue due to a 15% increase in taxable property values, according to county Financial Services Director John Brower.
"This is a chance to give Flagler County a break, if we can get to rollback."
— GREG HANSEN, Flagler County commissioner
Upcoming county expenses, he said, include updating the county's fleet, adding more firefighters and library workers, and the county's four-year plan to increase the lower limit for staff pay toward $15 per hour.
"We have a lot of deferred capital maintenance that we have to catch up on," Brower said. "We have an aging fleet that we’re trying to catch up, and make the fleet more reliable."
The county administration is also looking at implementing a merit-based raise program — especially since, according to county policy, it can only grant up to 4% cost-of-living increases per year.
In terms of the county's reserves, Brower said, "We’re right where we want to be at this point," with an unrestricted budgetary reserve equal to two twelfths of General Fund operating revenue. County staff would ultimately like to get to three twelfths.
Commissioner Andy Dance said that Brower's presentation shouldn't have assumed that millage would remain flat.
"The commission’s the only one that gets to set the millage," Dance said. "... We should be building the budget from the bottom up, not the top down."
Commissioner Donald O'Brien said he agreed, and that he'd like the county to consider at least a tenth of a mill decrease in the millage rate, and, potentially, changing the 4% cap for county staff cost-of-living increases.
"That’s something we might have to rethink, given the environment we’re in," O'Brien said.
If the county matched actual cost of living increases, Brower said, the COLA increase for staff would be 5.1%.
O'Brien said he'd also like to look at shifting toward a $15 per hour minimum for staff pay "as fast as possible," not only to comply with the law a few years down the line, but to keep the county competitive in the market now.
Commissioners Greg Hansen and Joe Mullins also said they wanted to look at decreasing the tax rate.
"Give us a chance to look hard at rollback," Hansen said, referring to the "rollback rate," which would bring in the same dollar amount of tax revenue as the county received this year, but at a lower tax rate, because of increases in property values. "This is a chance to give Flagler County a break, if we can get to rollback."
"I agree with Commissioner Hansen — let’s look at a reduction if we can," Mullins said. “[Residents] have been very patient, and we've got businesses coming in; we’ve got development coming in."
