By Marc Crail
 Mount Dora City Council, District 4  Representative

​Mount Dora City Council held its last in a series of Budget Workshops this morning.  It's difficult to condense all of the details into a few paragraphs but I'm going to try. If you have specific questions about the proposed budget, feel free to contact me. Just as always, please be aware that what follows comes from me not from City Council as a whole.

You've heard me say this before but it's important to know that creating a budget is a moving target. If a hurricane hits in the next few weeks or city hall burns to the ground tomorrow our "budget" will need to be changed drastically. We are still receiving new figures from the State of Florida. A new batch of numbers arrived late yesterday afternoon and more could follow in the upcoming days or weeks.

The next steps for adopting our FY 2021-22 budget will consist of a first public hearing at 5:30 p.m. on September 7th. when we will adopt a tentative millage rate and budget. Then at a second public hearing on September 21st. at 5:30 we will adopt the final millage and budget. These are public meetings at City Hall.

One important factor that is totally out of our control is inflation. The August 2021 CPI shows overall prices are rising by 5.4% year over year. Will that rate of inflation slow down or will it go even higher in the upcoming months? Who knows for sure, but we have to plan for higher energy costs, higher costs for construction, gasoline, etc.

I got my TRIM Notice in the mail yesterday. When you get yours, you will notice that in the line titled "City of Mount Dora", in the first blue column (Column 7) that our anticipated millage rate is listed as 6.2. That will almost certainly be reduced to 6.0 mills and potentially even lower. At 6.0 mills, the owner of an "average" Mount Dora house that is owner occupied will pay $25.10 more next year. Thats about $2.09 more per month on a house with an assessed valuation of $182,607. Your house value could be higher or lower.

Our property taxes (Ad Valorem) provide about 1/3 of our city's revenue. Roughly another 1/3 of our revenue comes from charges for services (utilities, etc.) and the final approximately 1/3 comes from transfers. About 65% of our budget is used to pay personnel costs (salaries and benefits). Another chunk of our revenues goes to pay for capital improvements that include major building & equipment items, renovations, new facilities, etc.

One major budget item for next year, that we have been discussing for months now is the reduction in force of 7 firefighters who have served our city well for the past 3 years. These staff reductions became necessary because the Federal SAFER Grant that covered the lion's share of their salaries comes to an end this December and because our need to construct a third fire station has been delayed for the foreseeable future. Losing these employees saddens me. Our Personnel Department is working diligently to help those 7 fire fighters to secure jobs in the area. I think they will all find new jobs nearby.

Kudos to our City staff for all of their hard work to get us to this point in the budget process. I'll keep you informed as the final steps occur in the next month.

My quote of the day comes from Oprah Winfrey. "God will not look you over for medals, or diplomas but for scars."

Thanks for your interest in your city government!

By Marc Crail
 Mount Dora City Council, District 4  Representative

Due to its recent charter revisions, the City is in the transition process from 2 year terms to 4 year terms. Council members elected in 2021 will serve 3 year terms ending in 2024, as part of this process. Additionally, a fifth district was added (District 5) and one of the at-Large seats was eliminated.   The other district seats were not up for re-election this year.  ​  Election Day is November 2.

​Follow Mount Dora Buzz on Facebook and Instagram.  For more news and events in Mount Dora, Tavares & Eustis, visit the area's website and download the area's free mobile app. ​

​Follow Mount Dora Buzz on Facebook and Instagram.  For more news and events in Mount Dora, Tavares & Eustis, visit the area's website and download the area's free mobile app. ​

By Marc Crail
District 4 City Council Representative 

This morning (8/3/21) City Council held a Budget Workshop between 9:00-12:00. The single agenda item was the Fire department's budget for FY2021-22. A Work Session or Workshop is a public meeting and it was held at the W.T. Bland Library's meeting room. Work Sessions give council members a chance to hear information, ask questions and discuss things. Today members of the public were invited to provide their opinions as well. What follows come from me not from city council as a whole.

Normally I report to you retrospectively about what has happened at a Council meeting. I might say that we voted to approve this or that and the vote was 5-2. I can tell you who voted yes or no because it's already happened. No votes were taken today so I'll concentrate on letting you know that we reviewed the historical timelines of our plans to build new fire stations and staffing. We discussed our future plans to build 2 new fire stations and a public works facility.

We talked about the fact that Mount Dora's fire department became fully accredited in March of 2020. There are only 88 accredited fire departments in the United States and just 286 in the world. Our fire department is among the very best in the world.

Our fire department has set 4 Key Expectations:

• Adequate Staffing
• Response times benchmarked against national standards
• Well trained & proficient firefighters
• Community outreach & public educations

The major questions at hand involve how much staffing is needed to do the job and how to balance our high service expectations with our City's budget constraints. We talked about The Fire Assessment Fee that has been set at $219 per year for the past few years and our ad valorem taxes that support our fire department. This year we spend $936.63 per household on fire services. That totals $6,796,701.00 for our city of 15,200 residents. We discussed the federal SAFER Grant that allowed us to hire 12 new firefighters three years ago and is sunsetting this December.

We looked at and discussed 3 different proposed staffing models. Each has pros and cons. We've asked our Finance Director to bring us back information on a model for consideration at a future meeting. In the end we are struggling with providing excellent fire services to Mount Dora while at the same time keeping taxes reasonable.

Like every aspect of our City Budget we will need to weigh our options and collectively come up with an option that will likely involve compromises.

Our regular City Council Meeting has been moved to Wednesday 8/4/21 at City Hall. You'll here from me again tomorrow evening.

My quote today is from Marcus Aurelius. "The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject."

By Marc Crail
District 4 City Council Representative

​Follow Mount Dora Buzz on Facebook and Instagram.  For more news and events in Mount Dora, Tavares & Eustis, visit the area's website and download the area's free mobile app. ​