- January 10, 2025
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The Palm Coast City Council has finalized its priorities for the next fiscal year.
The City Council approved the new priorities list unanimously during a May 2 meeting.
City staff will present the council with a budget breakdown for those priorities on June 27, Assistant City Manager Lauren Johnston told the council.
There will be several presentations as part of the budgeting process.
On May 23, the City Council will hear a presentation on fund accounting and revenue restrictions, while another presentation will present an overview of the utility, public works and stormwater departments.
On June 13, the City Council will hear a presentation on the city's property taxes and the Truth in Millage report, also known as the TRIM report.
The TRIM report states the maximum millage amount that the City Council can levee for the next fiscal year.
The council's priorities are divided into four "pillars": strong resilient economy, safe and reliable services, civic engagement, and sustainable environment and infrastructure.
These pillars and the priority items that fall under them are intended to guide City Council during the budgeting process from year to year.
Strong resilient economy
This pillar directs staff and the City Council to find ways to diversify and support the city's economy.
The council has added three new priority items, modified four and moved two to operations.
The new priorities are:
The City Council asked staff to modify the priority for developing economic opportunity tools by looking at incentives to draw business and ways to decrease red tape for new local businesses.
Safe and reliable services
The safe and reliable services pillar focuses on maintaining uninterrupted and quality services. There are five fiscal year 2024 priorities under this umbrella. One is to continue ensuring that the Maintenance and Operations Complex is a top facility project and stays on schedule.
The other four priorities are new:
Civic engagement
This pillar only has two priority items, both geared toward encouraging public participation.
In the last year, staff marked one item — identifying potential locations to name after former Mayor Jon Netts — as complete. Another item — redesigning the blue and white neighborhood signs in the city — was removed because the City Council felt it should not be a priority during fiscally stringent times.
The two priorities for fiscal year 2024 are:
Sustainable Environment and Infrastructure
This priority focuses on future sustainable infrastructure. Funding for the city's roadways and stormwater departments fall under different parts of the budgeting process, and are not included in the Strategic Action Plan priorities.
Two of the previous priorities from fiscal year 2023 were completed, including conducting a solar feasibility study for current and future facilities and encouraging city lobbyists to push the Florida Department of Transportation to include the Old Kings Road widening in FDOT's five-year work plan.
The two remaining priorities for the next fiscal year are:
