Tonight there will be the First Public Hearing to set the 2016 budget. Originally I reported there was no back-up--Correction--the city added some budget summaries for the most important decision of the year, you, Joe Public, might not have to read the 2015/2016 Draft Budget which is 262 pages. When you do open the document, you can't find a thing. Try doing a search. They eliminated this function several years ago. But even if you read it, you will then have to download last year's budget in order to compare the two--an impossible feat to say the least.
The City obviously is not counting the First Public Hearing in its notice to the public. Fl Statutes says within 15 days after the meeting adopting the tentative budget (so that must be tonight as consensus was only agreed in Workshops--no vote), the taxing authority shall advertise in a newspaper of general circulation in the county as provided in subsection (3), its intent to finally adopt a millage rate and budget. A public hearing to finalize the budget and adopt a millage rate shall be held not less than 2 days nor more than 5 days after the day that the advertisement is first published. So Joe Public will not really know about this Budget until the 2nd Public Reading that will be pushed through and decided tonight.
Items that are really "sticky" are never discussed or just casually mentioned such as union retirement benefits that are costing us an arm and a leg. No one talked about legal fees and what that is costing the city. This commission raised employee salaries by 4%...probably do to smart politics with elections on the horizon. This cost is nearly double what we will receive in added ad valorem taxes. The PBSO contract is going up 1% and crime is out of control.
The budget is prepared by the various department heads--it is all about what they want for the coming year. It is up to the commission to say "yes," "no," or make adjustments during the Workshop sessions which is a process where the public is not allowed to speak a word...the very people who pay for it all. But this is a tax and spend commission (think of the beach fund budget where Maxwell and Triolo wanted us to be in the hole of over 400,000 a year).
This budget projects a deficit of $633,977 but will be corrected by the use of savings and of FB balance. This "visionary" is not interested in public input.
So, basically, we all are at the mercy of the city manager and his staff because three commissioners follow their lead. We know how all of that goes: suggested general obligation bond for $63 million, a 30 year contract with Siemens for $32.5 million, every business license fee up 5%, water up 3.5%, The certified taxable value of real and personal property within the City of Lake Worth increased by $125,079,569 or 10.47%. The city has elected to not roll-back the rate to reflect the increased property values. Therefore, you will also be paying more in ad valorem taxes this year in spite of the following rates staying the same:
Millage rate: 5.4945
County Fire MSTU millage: 3.4581
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