- October 11, 2024
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City officials are eyeing a property tax hike to improve the city's sports fields.
The city of Ormond Beach is pursuing a 4.16% tax rate increase to raise money for field improvements and maintenance at Nova Community Center and the Ormond Beach Sports Complex. The proposed tentative millage rate of 4.0060 mills — or $4.0060 per $1,000 in taxable property value — would raise $500,000 for Leisure Services and $300,000 more for the city's Facilities Renewal and Replacement fund.
The City Commission voted 4-1 on July 18 to pursue the millage rate increase, which is 13.71% above the rollback rate, or the rate that generates the same amount of tax revenue as the previous year.
Commissioners at an Aug. 15 meeting listened to an overview of how the extra 0.1650 mills would be used for the next four years if the council approves the tax rate at budget hearings on Sept. 6 and 20.
High on the priority list? The reconstruction of fields two through five at the Nova Rec.
Those fields, according to the city, were last rehabilitated 15-20 years ago, and maintenance is becoming costlier.
The city estimates that each field will cost about $85,000 to refurbish, for a total of $340,000.
Leisure Services Director Robert Carolin said the fields hold water when it rains, so local teams don't have a consistent playing surface. The fields also have "lips," or a raised section between the infield and outfield.
"If you've been out there, if your children are currently out there, that's what we're up against now," Carolin said. "The only real way to make that a level, safe, drainable playing surface is to remove the old clay, bring that down and redo the entire infield."
Commissioners were also concerned with safety. Commissioner Travis Sargent cited a past incident where a child sustained a concussion on the field due to the lip.
If the fields are unsafe, Mayor Bill Partington said, the city should shut them down.
"It just doesn't make any sense to me why we would allow them to be played on if they're dangerous," Partington said. "Who lets this happen? What kind of management allows this?"
City Manager Joyce Shanahan said the renovation and improvement projects have remained unfunded for a long time.
The second project the extra millage would fund next year would be an $800,000 quad lighting project at the softball quad at the Ormond Beach Sports Complex. Staff would leverage the $500,000 generated by the added millage for an ECHO grant or other grants.
"The staff does the very best job that they can with grading those fields," Shanahan said. "But these fields, to the best of my knowledge, have not been reconstructed since they were created."
Carolin added that the city closed fields last year because staff deemed them unsafe, and the city leveled them. But that wasn't a permanent fix and didn't help the fields shed water properly.
The commission also discussed the fate of field one at Nova Rec.
Initially, city staff proposed relocating the field, one of the oldest in the city, and converting the property to a passive recreation use.
But the field is one of the least used in the city, so the commission removed the relocation from the list of projects to be funded by the added millage.
Partington, the lone vote against the tentative millage rate at the July 18 meeting, reiterated that he opposes the tentative millage rate. He said it is too steep in a year when residents are facing other rising costs.
City Commission Lori Tolland said she supported the increase.
She noted that the city’s Parks and Recreation Master Plan, updated in 2021, included a survey in which 69.5% of respondents said they would be willing to pay $12-$60 a year to fund Leisure Services programs; 41.9% said they would be willing to pay $61-$120 to fund programs.
“It’s very appropriate," she said. "It’s what we need. It’s long overdue.”
The extra $300,000 in tax revenue would also fund new playground equipment at Central Park, a roof replacement for the city's engineering department and Performing Arts Center box office and a new HVAC system for Fire Station 93.
