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Council quick to approve tax rate, budget

By Staff | Sep 28, 2016

Including the pledge of allegiance and the invocation, it took just 18 minutes for the Sanibel City Council on Wednesday to give its unanimous approval to the 2017 city budget and millage.

The $62,468,100 budget is 11.47 percent more than the 2016 adopted budget and 6.63 percent less than the amended budget, while the 1.9139 millage is the lowest it has been in the city’s history.

The budget is also expected to continue to pare down the city’s debt, which has been roughly cut in half in the last decade.

“We have a historically low millage rate from where it was before the recession. We’ve cut it 24 percent,” Mayor Kevin Ruane said. “We’ve been averaging $4 million per year in debt reduction through refinancing. I can see us reducing it this year another $2 million or $3 million.”

“The city has looked to make sure we have the services and looked for the need to reduce our debt some way by getting lower interest rates or paying it off,” Councilman Jim Jennings said. “I would like to think a lot of cities in the region would like to do the same thing.”

After continuing the final budget hearing on Tuesday, so it wouldn’t conflict with the Lee County budget approval hearing, Wednesday’s meeting happened with little disapproval.

About the only discussion was what to do regarding the lighting of the ballfields, for which there was an agreement made years ago among the county, the school board and the city to share equally in the cost.

Councilman Marty Harrity said he would try to get the school board to pay its fair share and make sure the lighting, which currently is below standard, is improved.

“This agreement has been in place since before I was on council, and recently the school board has said it won’t pay it and we’ve had to foot the bill,” Jennings said. “It’s not fair to the citizens.”

“We have an interlocal agreement. We pay the county $87 million in taxes. To ask for $100,000 for an expense doesn’t seem too unreasonable,” Ruane said.

In public comment, Steve Maxwell said the liked the budget, but suggested including line items such as the salaries of workers, especially that of the city manager and higher ranking officials, as to provide usability and understandability in the same way as Naples does it.

Ruane said he would take his suggestion under advisement, but added one of the things the citizens wanted was a thinner budget.

“We need to see what the citizens want. I haven’t heard many other citizens request what he wants. We’ll consider it. The challenge you have is that when I first got on the council, the budget was 400 pages. It’s about 200 today,” Ruane said. “Doing that by department, is that another 30 or 40 pages and will the reader benefit?”