The City of Trenton is facing a budget deficit due to rising operational costs.
At their last meeting, city commissioners voted to set the tentative millage rate to 3.75 mills. If that rate holds at the final budget hearing, it would be an increase from last year’s rate of 3.5 mills.
City Manager Brittany Mills said the higher millage rate will help, but it will still require some cuts to completely eliminate the deficit.
Mills said the overall cost of operating has gone up substantially over the last three years.
“That’s causing just an overall low percentage across the board,” Mills said. “But when you start adjusting that for every department, it causes that increase.”
Mills said an issue they have under general funds has been caused by reclassifying public works employees whose pay came out of water and sewer now comes out of the general fund. She said that change has increased general fund expenses by around $200,000.
“So being that we’re only $98,000 behind budget, it’s actually a little better,” Mills said. “We cut some areas to help compensate for that, but we still have a little ways to go.”
Mills said the raised millage rate would lower the deficit to around $68,000 before taking into account possibly raising the fire assessment from $200 to $229, as was voted on for the TRIM notice at the last meeting.
The commercial fire assessment is also set to increase from $0.03 per square foot to $0.05 per square foot.
Mills said these numbers come from a fire assessment study that shows different fire assessments based on how much of the cost of fire service each would cover.
Last year’s $200 assessment covered 53 percent of the cost of fire service in Trenton. The proposed $229 assessment would cover 61 percent.
“That’s the reason we went to that next step, because it’s just, in the step process, that’s naturally the next catergory to put us in,” Mills said.
Mills said it has been a few years since the city had that study done. When it has a new one done — Mills hopes it will be in the next year — those rates and percentages could change.
Water, sewer and garbage rates will also be increasing.
Garbage will increase by3 percent. Mills said that is because WastePro is raising the city’s rates by 3 percent, so the city is passing that on to the consumer.
Sewer has proposed increase of 10 percent this year.
Mills said sewer went up 3 percent last year. However, sewer rates should have increased 10 percent last year based on a rate study the city had performed by the Florida Rural Water Association, then 3 percent this year.
This 10 percent increase, Mills said, should get the city to the rate it should be at this year.
Water rates also increased by 3 percent last year when the same study said water rates should have increased by 20 percent, Mills said.
“That put us in a negative of 17 percent for water and a negative of 7 percent for sewer,” Mills said. “But increasing our rates 10 percent for sewer makes up that deficit, and we’re able to have a balanced budget.”
Mills said the Florida Rural Water Association does these surveys at no cost to the city. They work with the city and Florida Department of Environmental Protection to estimate costs over the next 10 years and compare that to revenue that would be generated by different rates to show where the city’s rates should be over the next 10 years.
“So, ideally, we would go up by that percentage, their recommendation, each year,” Mills said.” We haven’t been doing that, so it causes us to get a little bit farther behind.”
Already being behind in rate increases from last year, Mills said Trenton would be behind by 37 percent this year without a rate increase based on the study.
However, Mills said she looked at Trenton’s expenditures in water and found that their expenditures were lower than what the study had estimated.
“After I was able to adjust for the expenditures for htis upcoming year, it’s just a little bit less than that, so I was actually able to meet our budget just by 26 percent,” Mills said. “So we were able to save a little bit there for our taxpayers.”
Mills said the 26 percent increase will allow Trenton to balance its water budget.
Mills said the city’s current water main project, which they expect to completed in the next year, has helped with water expenditures.
She said that the city has not had to spend as much on things like fixing leaks, which has decreased spending on water.
Mills said if she had continued looking at the numbers from the study instead of the actual numbers the city has shown the last two years, it would have led to a higher water rate. But by looking at recent numbers, Mills saw she could balance the budget with a lower rate than what she previously had thought.
“We’re doing our absolute best to keep the rate increases as low as possible but still being able to cover our expenditures,” Mills said. “There is no extras in this. Every dime we get pretty much is going out as an expenditure, so we’re running on a minimal budget as much as possible.”