City commission continues budget discussion on June 11
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
The Gainesville City Commission will continue a series of Special Meetings on the budget with Thursday’s meeting at 1:00 p.m. Last year, all suggestions to cut the budget were rejected, and the result was a 32% increase in the Fire Assessment Fee, a 15.64% increase in property taxes, and a 6% increase in GRU rates.
This year, the presentation on the General Government budget includes a long list of unfunded increment requests and unfunded capital increment requests. Although we don’t know which, of any, of these, will be approved by the city commission, every scenario that is being presented to the commissioners includes both property tax and Fire Assessment Fee increases.
All of the usual income projections (property values, sales tax, gas tax) are uncertain now because of the pandemic-related lockdowns, the City is continuing to spend money they hadn’t previously budgeted on COVID-related items, and the unfunded increments add up to over $9 million, so this year’s budget will not be a simple matter of approving the second year of last year’s 2-year budget.
Gainesville residents can watch the budget presentation on Cox Channel 12 or the City’s web site and call in to give their opinions regarding the proposed City budget by calling (800) 876-7516.
Discussion of GRU’s budget will begin at Thursday night’s Utility Advisory Board meeting. The UAB is supposed to send recommendations to the city commission, but last year, instead of recommending an amount for the General Fund Transfer, they just sent a matrix that matched GRU rate increases with the city commission’s selected General Fund Transfer amount.
Thanks Alachua Chronicle…the only way I can get a
Synopsis of what’s going on in local government is through your excellent
Reporting…you guys provide a great community service.
Dear City of Gainesville: Make sure to include in your new budget a big pay raise for the Head of GRU. At a mere $300,000 per year he is one of the most underpaid public servants in Gainesville. And a big pay raise for the City Manager too. If you don’t pay them more, some other city may hire them away and Gainesville will lose their irreplaceable services.
Actually the head of GRU is King Poe’s servant. When his king bends over I’m sure he’s there to wipe.
Raise taxes again?! Raise fire assessment fees? Do you people realize that GRU rates are already some of the highest in the states; along with the gas tax in this county. If property taxes are raised again ( which are back to pre-2007-08 levels) people will lose their homes. People were able to purchase homes after the housing crash because tax rates had dropped. When they increased property taxes our mortgage increases and being in a state job we do not get raises like every one else; the state is always the last to raise wages resulting in state employees and private company employees losing their homes.