Politics & Government

Property Tax Hike in Store for Safety Harbor?

The Safety Harbor City Commission will vote on the propose millage rate increase Tuesday.

If approved by the city commission, the property tax rate in Safety Harbor will increase in fiscal year 2014. City officials will use the increase in revenue to plug the expected $635,000 budget shortfall for 2014. 

During Tuesday's first public hearing on the budget, the commission will vote a proposed millage rate of 3.7343. That proposed rate represents an 11.61 percent increase of a millage roll back rate of 3.3457, according to city documents

A rollback rate is what the millage rate would need to be for Safety Harbor residents to pay the same amount of property taxes in 2014 as they did in 2013. 

Safety Harbor will also use a number of budget reductions to go along with the increase in revenue from the millage rate to balance the budget. 

The tentative operating budget will be $20.9 million. City documents said the property tax hike reduces the general fund dependency on fund reserves to $68,270. 

According to city documents, the $258,130 in proposed cuts include: July 4th fireworks subsided by a sponsorship, reduction of a traffic deputy, defer increasing recreation staffing levels and maintain current program levels.

For a more complete list of proposed cuts visit the city's website

In July Mayor Joe Ayoub said solely going into reserves to close the budget gap would put Safety Harbor in financial jeopardy in a few years.

"We can keep on this path for five or six years or so, but then we're going to get to the cliff," Ayoub said at July budget workshop. "So we can wait and make drastic changes, or we can make some changes now so we never get to the cliff."

The proposed budget 2014 budget has the city using $68,270 in reserves. 

Tuesday's public hearing begins at 7:30 p.m. The final public hearing on the proposed budget and millage rate will be Sept. 16 at 7:30 p.m.

What do you think the city should do? Tell us by commenting below.


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