- September 26, 2024
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After a week of cancelled meetings, the Palm Coast City Council has voted 3-1 to adopt its $421.5 million budget for the next fiscal year.
Vice Mayor Ed Danko was the only dissenting vote at the Sept. 25 meeting. The $421 million budget is made up of several different funds, only $61 million of which is the city’s general fund, primarily funded by the millage rate, the property tax rate property owners pay.
The city’s budget for 2025 is an 17.9% increase over the 2024 budget. The 2025 millage rate for Palm Coast was set to 4.1893, or $4.1893 per $1,000 of taxable property value.
As he has in every meeting discussing the 2025 budget, Danko asked his fellow council members for the city to find a way to cut $2 million from the budget and adopt a rolled-back millage rate.
A rolled-back millage would mean the city’s property tax revenue would stay the same as it was in the adopted 2024 budget. The adopted 4.1893 rate, while more than the rolled-back rate of 3.9961, is a slight reduction from the city’s 2024 millage rate of 4.2570.
The $2 million is what the city would have needed to cut from the general fund budget to adopt a full rolled-back millage rate. The general fund pays for city services like the fire department, code enforcement, public works and parks and recreation, among other departments.
As he did at the council’s Sept. 5 vote on the budget, Danko suggested that the difference could be pulled from the city $20 million reserve fund.
“To our seniors, this is a big deal,” Danko said. “I just think finding that $2 million out of a $20 million reserve is an easy thing for us to do and give our residents that relief.”
Council member Theresa Carli Pontieri said pulling money from the reserves for the budget sets a bad precedent.
“In my mind, that is equivalent to dipping into oil reserves in order to lower gas prices. It is a cheap trick, it is not fiscally responsible and it's not tenable,” she said. “You can't continue to dip into reserves in order to lower something over and over and over, because then you have no reserves.”
The 2025 budget does include funding for new positions, both at the city and in public safety. It includes funding for nine new deputies to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, three new firefighters for the Palm Coast Fire Department, a city press release said.
It also allocates funds for two new fire stations, Pontieri said, some of the funding for which came out of the city’s reserve fund.
“Vice Mayor Danko, I hear you, I do,” she said. “I have to say, I take a little offense at the inclination that I don't think it's a lot of money and that we're not considering seniors.”
The city, Pontieri said, is not immune to inflation, through the cost of materials, chemicals and even employee health insurance. Financial Services Director Helena Alves said the health insurance fund increased by 18.4%, 16% of which was related to health insurance cost increases.
Pontieri said the city has done its best to find areas to save money and help the city’s seniors.
“This budget prioritize prioritizes life safety. It prioritizes our deputies, our fire stations and our union and it prioritizes public safety on our road,” she said. “I'm proud of this budget. I commend staff, and I commend this council for getting there, and I will be in full support of the current millage.”
