MOUNT DORA CITY COUNCIL: August 19 Budget Workshop

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

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