Padgett pointed to City Finance Director Melody Marlowe's report that the city's doing a good job holding on to the purse strings and as a result she's projecting a $1.4-million positive change, with a half million dollars in revenues above the 2011 budget and an $848,000 total department expense savings.
"Our finances are in good shape right now but we are keeping an eye on all the revenue sources, watching how they are trending and also looking at what's going on at the state level as well," Padgett said.
Marlowe said an example of what could hurt city revenues from the State Capital was Senate Bill 346, a bill taking effect that calls for tax digest properties to be lowered from their assessed value to their sale value. Marlowe gave as an example Lake Shore Mall with a value of $29-million that sold for $6-million. Marlowe said she was not comfortable with property tax revenue projections, which she estimated would be down 10 percent, amounting to a half million dollars.
Successful sales tax negotiations with the state with the hope of getting more sales tax revenue back to Gainesville, progress on recreation, a comprehensive plan are among this year's goals, but Mayor Ruth Bruner said Council looked carefully at the revenue pitfall legislation coming from the State capital that would impact property tax, annexation or franchise fees.
"We don't want the legislature altering them so that we have to end up raising millage rates to have the same amount of revenue," the Mayor said.
SNOW COST STILL UNCERTAIN
City Public Works Director David Dockery said during the retreat he does not yet have a figure on how much snow removal cost during the winter storm of January 10th, but did estimate that the street maintenance division alone in Public Works racked up 300 hours in overtime, not to mention the damage cost the freeze thaw cycle did to pavement.
"We spent about $16,000 in materials and supplies and in addition we paid over 300 hours of overtime," Dockery said. "During the weather event we had people working from 8:00 p.m. Sunday before the storm started through Friday afternoon at 5:00 p.m., 24-7, around the clock"
Dockery said he is not sure how that translates into dollars, and the city did not have a snow removal budget.
"Even that doesn't give us the full cost of the storm because we had other divisions in Public Works, we had Public Utilities devoting a great deal of time and effort, even Parks and Recreation and the Golf Course helped out with the clean-up effort."
Padgett pointed to City Finance Director Melody Marlowe
City Public Works Director David Dockery said the street maintenance division alone in Public Works racked up 300 hours in overtime during the recent snow storm
Mayor Ruth Bruner said Council looked carefully at the revenue pitfall legislation coming from the State capital
City Manager Kip Padgett said Monday morning City Council is approaching the New Year cautiously optimistic about finances and revenues
http://accesswdun.com/article/2011/1/235778