In an interview with 13 WMAZ after Monday night’s city council meeting, Warner Robins councilman Tim Thomas says Mayor Randy Toms’ budget proposal includes a 2.5 mill increase for the city’s millage rate in fiscal year 2019.
“I know the budget this year has a proposed 2.5 millage increase, which I'm against,” Thomas told 13 WMAZ.
Mayor Toms confirmed his proposal does include a 2.5 mill increase.
Toms says the proposed increase is a recommendation from the city’s chief financial officer.
“The healthcare costs are always damaging to us, every year, and so every year she recommends, she or the chief financial officer in place recommends, 'At some point you're going to have to raise the millage rate,” Toms said.
However, Toms says he is personally against raising the millage rate and hopes he and the Council can come to some other solution before the budget is passed this summer.
“So, I decided to just give it to ‘em full force right off the bat, let them work on it a little bit, send it back to my office, let me communicate with them and see what we can get this thing down to,” Toms said.
The first budget proposal comes from the Mayor’s office after discussing it with the financial office and department heads, then it goes to Council members for input and then they try to come up with a compromise.
Councilman Thomas says he knows the recommendation came from the financial office, but says it's time to tighten belts, not raise taxes.
“I'm gonna go through the budget and we're going to start kind of shaving it back and see where we are, in about a week, then we'll go from there with it with public hearings,” Thomas said.
Thomas said he’s hopeful new industrial investment, along with development in the special tax allocation district help defer costs, instead of a tax increase.
Toms says if he were to follow through with a millage rate increase, it’d have to be earmarked for a specific purpose.
“What I have consistently said and what I'll say now is that if I'm going to raise the millage rate, I'm going to specify that raising of the millage rate for public safety, is specifically, most of it, for law enforcement,” Toms said after Monday night’s meeting.
The city’s current millage rate is 9.983.
A 2.5 mill increase would mean homeowners with a $100,000 home would pay $100 more a year on their property taxes.
The city has till July 1 to approve a budget for FY 2019.
Earlier at Monday’s Council meeting, the Council received the results of a Nichols, Cauley & Associates, LLC audit into fiscal year 2017.
The auditors said the city received a “clean” opinion, meaning the financial documents did not have inaccuracies.
The auditors said the city’s net revenues came in at a total of $98.8 million and expenses were $94.4 million.
They also said the city’s reserve fund balance shrunk a bit from last year. This year, the city has enough in the reserve account to fund government operations for about 4.5-5 month. Last year, the city had enough money for six months.
The city has $14.8 million in unassigned funds, according to the auditor’s report. The city’s monthly operating expenses are about $3.3 million.
The city’s changes to healthcare co-pays helped city finances, according to the auditors. The deficit shrunk as health expenses cost the city $940,000, but health payments brought in $615,000, shrinking the deficit compared to last year.
You can read the full auditor’s report here.