High Springs City Commission votes to raise property tax rate by 27 percent, passes 2024 budget

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

HIGH SPRINGS, Fla. – At their September 14 regular meeting, the High Springs City Commission adopted an increased property tax rate of 6.99 mills on first reading. They also adopted an increased 2024 City budget on first reading. These items will be revisited for second readings on September 25.

Property taxes

City Attorney Scott Walker introduced Resolution 2023-N: “The tentative operating millage rate of 6.9900 mills is approved by this resolution. It will no longer be a tentative millage rate, it’ll be the millage rate that we assess if that’s what is approved by you this evening. It is greater than the rollback rate of 5.5089 by 26.89 percent. So, at the appropriate time, there will be the process of setting the millage rate. The public hearing will be held to consider the final millage rate and final budget for General Municipal purposes, which will be on Monday, September 25 at 6:30 p.m.”

City Manager: Increase is necessary to balance the budget, given inflation

City Manager Ashley Stathatos spoke: “Our proposed rate is 6.99. The amount that has been budgeted in the budget is 6.99. The impact of this is around $100 per $100,000 assessed value per home. Staff is proposing the increase in the millage basically to balance the budget. It’s not for anything special. It’s because the cost of fuel, the cost of insurance, the cost of supplies, basically all the things that go along with inflation have impacted us, too. We’ve cut the budget down as much as we can without having drastic implications to service levels, and we find it necessary to request the extra millage.”

Commissioner Katherine Weitz asked, “I don’t know if we can really discuss a millage until we’ve gone through the budget. Are we supposed to pass the millage rate before we go over the budget?”

Stathatos responded, “I think we discussed the budget in our workshop meetings and the millage as well. And the meetings I’ve had with you one-on-one.” Weitz continued, “I just wasn’t aware that we had to adopt a new millage rate before presenting the budget and trying to make, you know, any comments to the budget as presented.”

During a short discussion between the commissioners and mayor, it was explained that there will be a second reading on September 25, and it will be possible to lower (but not raise) the proposed 6.99 rate at that time.

Grunder: “It looks like unfortunately this is what is going to need to happen.”

City Commissioner Tristan Grunder spoke: “I think it’s worth just saying that… this does not come easy for any of us up here sitting right now because I think we all understand where we’re at as a country right now. And everything is going up, but unfortunately, I mean, running these numbers back, forward, and everything else, it doesn’t look like there’s another way to get there right now. So I’m hoping we can come up with something else and maybe look at some things. But I mean, you know, it’s not nothing that any of us want to do, and I hope we can bring it back later when other things come online that we thought might be online this year that have not been. But yeah, it looks like unfortunately this is what is going to need to happen.”

Stathatos interjected, “I mean there have been substantial decreases in the budget. It does include… [a 3% raise] for employees, but directors are not getting raises. Includes only the most basic necessary travel for people for certifications so they don’t lose those. You know, we will probably be freezing some positions as the year goes by. We’re going to continue to look for cost-savings measures throughout the year, but even with… the addition of the proposed millage rate, it’s still going to be extremely tight, and we… likely will still have to take from fund balance.”

Public comment

During public comment, a member of the audience who did not identify herself spoke: “When we have our budgets at home, we have a certain amount of money, and then we make it work the best we can. We don’t continue to add things on because there’s no more revenue coming in, and to expect people to incur that kind of a millage rate when we know when we get to hear the rest of the budget the utility bills and a number of other things are going to raise our consumers’ cost tremendously… And I understand that we’re all facing it, but that’s exactly why our City needs to look at other ways to make cuts.” 

Stathatos commented, “The only project added in the general fund this year was one night officer, and that was for safety purposes, so there wasn’t a lot of extraneous stuff, if any, added to the budget, and we did substantial cuts.”

Donald Alderman spoke next: “You guys haven’t done everything. You’re letting revenue sit out there in taxes… The state of Florida charter says any enclave or any island can be forcibly annexed in without choice. We’re sitting here dancing for years when every house along the river there can be annexed in. You can annex in Camp Kulaqua. You can annex all these people in, and we can gain more revenue that way… Send out letters… ‘You’re in the city. Tough, it’s the way it is.’ We’re providing services for them now, police and fire… We need to start making them people pay for the services they’re getting for free, and they’re high-dollar along that river. They need to be paying.”

Commissioner Ross Ambrose explained, “That’s been a policy of the City, not to forcibly annex any property owner out of respect for property owner rights. That policy may need to change, and we should have a discussion about that. But we can’t snap our fingers and do that.”

The unidentified audience member spoke again and pointed out the City spent $1.2 million for AMI smart electric meters but has yet to install a single meter, and the city has a fleet of brand new vehicles when it is lacking funds. Stathatos said the meters have been delivered to the City and will be installed in the near future.

Grunder made a motion to adopt the resolution, and Commissioner Bryan Williams seconded the motion. The motion passed 4-1, with Weitz in dissent, although Mayor Gloria James announced, “Resolution 2023-N passes four to zero.” 

Budget

The next item on the agenda was Ordinance 2023-11, adopting the 2023-2024 fiscal year budget. Stathatos gave an overview: “The proposed FY24 budget is $17.5 million general fund revenues. And expenses are $7.2 million. Water and sewer funds, $1.4 and $2 million respectively. Solid Waste $1.75 million. Building fund $412,000… Fire control $2.5 million, Wild Spaces Public Places $954,000… CRA $447,540, so that does include some fund balance rolled up in there, cemetery funds $66,954. And then the next slide breaks down the departments in the general fund.”

Leasing vs. purchasing vehicles

Weitz asked the City Manager about the City’s policy of leasing vehicles instead of purchasing them and the comparative costs. High Springs longtime resident Stacey Gay addressed the issue: “(I’ve) been here 42 years, used to be part owner of the Chevrolet dealer. The City bought a few vehicles from us over the years, and we tried to provide a service, but I’ve never heard of a City leasing a vehicle for anything. That’s ridiculous. That is a waste of money and the interest charged is per payment, and it’s usually a lot more cost in the end that you may not be aware of… I’ve seen some very nice pickups the City runs around in here. They used to buy straight trucks, you know the bare-bones. They didn’t have to have all the leather seats, the power windows, and the aluminum wheels, and those kinds of things. I could show them how to save a little money on that for fleet vehicles and show them how to get fleet prices. I don’t know who the purchaser is for those, but the lease was not the way to go… I remember the City used to even buy used vehicles from me because they were in a budget crunch, and I’d say, ‘Give me two weeks. Let me see what I can find you.’ And a lot of times I could save them 30 or 40 percent on a one-year-old vehicle and it would still last the same amount of time.… The lease company is going to make the money.”

A member of City staff explained that the leases include a buy-out clause. For example, police cars can be purchased at the end of a four-year lease for $8,000. Other types of vehicles may cost $10,000 or $12,000. 

After the staff member discussed how he thought it would cost more in the short term to purchase the vehicles, Mr. Gay, while seated, said, “We would own those vehicles, though.” The staff member replied to him, “We own them now.” Gay responded, “No, you don’t. It belongs to the lease company.”

The mayor and Williams admonished Gay for speaking while not recognized. Walker said, “We’re going to have civility in the house tonight, and I respect that you are acknowledging that. So, Madam Mayor recognizes citizens that want to speak. So, before you speak on an issue, what I would request that you do is raise your hand. … And Madam Mayor may not recognize you on this because I think you’ve already been up and been recognized one time.”

The staff member called Gay back to the podium and explained that the City had ordered basic versions of most of the City vehicles but had been delivered luxury versions due to scarce availability in 2020 and 2021. No one addressed the extra costs associated with insuring the more expensive vehicles compared to the basic versions or whether the leasing costs were higher because the vehicles were more expensive.

Nancy Piety spoke: “When it comes to your I.T. budget… you’re paying $14,000 a month. Okay, so when you said, ‘I’m not very versed in I.T.,’ I totally understand. But when you say you’re not very versed, that’s why you’re getting taken advantage of… You’re paying debt services, and you’re paying off bonds. These are on projects that you’ve done years ago that you still haven’t paid off bonds on, and you still have debt service on them. So my question for you is–you’re going to do new projects; you have yet to pay off old projects. You are buying new cars; you have yet to pay off old cars. This is a compounding problem… We made a bad decision and went with leasing, and we’re going to continue to compound that bad decision.” 

Ambrose made a motion to pass Ordinance 2023-11, and Grunder seconded the motion. The vote was 4-1 with Weitz in dissent, and once again James announced, “Approved, four to zero.”

General public comment

Piety spoke again during general public comment: “Commissioner Ambrose, you had said that you were voting for the budget even though you weren’t happy that you didn’t feel like you had time and you didn’t feel like you had all the facts. I understand that. I understand that that is an issue for you on a conscience level. What I think I want to reiterate is that everyone on that commission should have that same feeling, and if you don’t know what every line item on that budget was but you still voted yes to increase these people’s property taxes, and you’re going to vote next week to increase these people’s water and sewer taxes, then shame on you. That’s lazy. Please do the work.”

Stathatos said, “Commissioner Ambrose keeps me on my toes. He does the work, and he does the work on every item. I get more questions from him than most commissioners in my entire career. They’re very detailed questions, and there’s like five questions in each one question. And… he brings up great points, things that I don’t even think about, and I learn from him, so I appreciate him. And to ever say that he doesn’t do his homework every weekend, he does his work… and I respond to it.”