MOUNT DORA CITY COUNCIL: July 25 Budget Work Session

By Marc Crail
Mount Dora Vice Mayor & District 4 Representative

On Monday, July 22 City Council held a 10:00 a.m. Budget Workshop meeting. What follows comes only from me and isn't from City Council as a whole. Coming up with a budget for a public entity is always a drawn out process. We are continuing to work toward formulating our budget for fiscal year 2022-23 that begins on October 1. Nothing is for certain at this point but there are some "Key Drivers" to be aware of. We are in a time of unusually high inflation so it seems very likely that we will see an approximate 10% increase in our Property and Casualty Insurance rates, a 15% uptick in Workers Compensation costs not to mention needed pay raises. Inflation CPI last month was 9.1% which as we all know, is budget wrecking territory. None of this makes our job any easier.

You should receive by mail your proposed property taxes from the Lake County Property Appraiser a "TRIM Notice" in late August. That TRIM Notice will show the highest possible millage rates from each Lake County taxing agency. In the case of the City of Mount Dora, they will be on the high side and should be reduced in the end.

I'm expecting that all of us will see increases on our FY22-23 real estate tax bills averaging in the neighborhood of $7.29 per month or about $87.48 for the year. Please don't think that those numbers are for sure. They are definitely not. They are only my "guesstimates" for an "average" house. As we get closer to final adoption of our new budget the numbers will become more accurate.

Today we reviewed only the operating general fund budget, not our wages/ health insurance costs which are a large part of the tax equation. Those numbers will be forthcoming.

We still don't have several important numbers necessary for completing our budget building task. This is par for the course for this point in time but concerning too because of the inflationary climate we find ourselves in this year. This is one of City Council's most important tasks and from what I've seen, everyone involved is interested in doing the job as well as possible.

Upcoming budget related meetings include August 29th, at 10:00 a.m., September 6th at 6:00 p.m., for setting the Fire Assessment Fee and also adoption of our tentative millage and budget and September 20 at 6:00 p.m. for final millage and budget approval.

I got some flack when I forgot to include a quote in my most recent report. I won't make that mistake today! Our quote comes from Kathleen Casey Theisen. "Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgement of the facts of a situation. Then deciding what you're going to do about it."

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