City manager introduces draft budget, tax rate

City manager introduces draft budget, tax rate News Staff Wed, 07/10/2024 - 9:04 am Breckenridge City Manager Cynthia Northrop discusses an early version of the Fiscal Year 2024-2025 city budget during the Breckenridge City Commission meeting Tuesday, July 3. Photo/Mike Williams By Mike Williams news@breckenridgeamerican.com Breckenridge City Manager Cynthia Northrop is in the process of preparing the 2025 city budget and determining a tax rate to propose for Fiscal Year 2024-2025. The city manager introduced a draft budget to city commissioners Tuesday, July 5. In her preliminary budget, Northrop warned that the numbers included were not set in stone and based on a certified value that has not been formally approved. For the draft budget the city manager went with the preliminary value of $280,335,917 for the city of Breckenridge. This is a decrease from the certified value of $283,363,231 for 2023. Northrop said this could change before a tax rate is officially proposed to and passed by city commissioners. “Unfortunately the preliminary values went down. Now, I have talked to (Stephens County Chief Appraiser in Training) Will (Thompson) several times. He does feel like …The appraiser was very conservative. So he feels like, and it’s all probable, we don’t know, that’s we’ll probably be at $283,000, right around there,” Northrop said. “So, not a big change, at least not a decrease. We’ll see.” Based on preliminary values, Northrop has a proposed tax rate of $1.07 per $100 valuation. This would be a $0.01529 increase over last year’s tax rate of $1.05471. The proposed rate is less than the voter approval rate of $1.18083 and the de minimis rate of $1.37266. The city manager said that the proposed tax rate would likely be lowered if the certified value is higher than the preliminary value. Under the preliminary value, a homestead with the average taxable amount of $175,000 would see a city tax of $1,873. This is a $27 increase over the previous fiscal year. Northrop said there is a 2% increase in employee pay. Along with this cost of living adjustment and merit and equity adjustments, including benefits, this would create an increase of $217,379.21 in the budget. Other increases included $331,000 for fleet maintenance and replacement and $70,000 for the hiring of a code enforcement officer. “I’ve been talking about (hiring a code enforcement officer) for a long time,” Northrop said. “(Breckenridge Fire Chief) Malcolm (Bufkin) has done a great job, but he’s just one man. He’s got five other jobs. So having a code enforcement officer will really help us beautify Breckenridge.” Northrop said there were other increases in the budget due to rising supply prices across multiple departments. The city of Breckenridge has 67 total employees, including seasonal employees and four current vacancies. This time last year the city had 15 vacancies. Northrop said both the fire department and police departments are fully staffed. This is the first time the Breckenridge Police Department has been fully staffed since 2016. “The work that (the city commission is) doing, you guys have been very supportive in increases in salary and increases in our public work facilities and vehicle replacement,” Northrop said. “Not having a 10-year-old vehicle that looks like you never know (what’s going to happen) when you’re driving around town and it’s taking pride in your city. …I think we’re seeing a difference.” In the FY 2024-2025 general fund draft, there is an overall $507,560 increase in revenue over the previous year and a $141,332 increase in expenditures. The total revenue in the general fund draft is $5,265,260 and $4,996,609 in expenditures for a net revenue of $268,651. In the FY 2024-2025 water fund draft there is a revenue increase of $222,500. The total revenue is projected at $2,932,000, up from $2,709,500 in the previous year’s budget. The expenditures increased $109,779 from $556,579 in the previous year’s budget to $666,358 in the budget draft. This creates a net revenue prediction of $104,372. The FY 2024-2025 wastewater fund draft has a net revenue of $182,738. This comes from projected revenue of $1,705,400 (up $103,600 from last year) and projected expenditures of $1,522,622 (up $216,207 from last year). Northrop highlighted seven points in the budget draft. First was the projected $0.1529 per $100 valuation increase in the property tax rate. She also highlighted increased pay for all existing employees to bring closer to market competitiveness, new code enforcement officer position, vehicle replacement program, general fund debt for 2023 Certificate of Obligation that cover upgrades in city streets, parks and public works facilities, water and wastewater improvements and funding for contract mowing and Gunsolus Creek maintenance.  “This is a summary tying it back to our strategic plan and what those expenditures align with,” Northrop said. “There are other things in the budget, I’m just trying to highlight our big-dollar things. There are other things in there with our website, we’re on-boarding a new project, a new communications tool (called) TextMyGov…Another way for us to communicate with residents and residents to communicate with us. We are on-boarding things to (promote) transparency and communication.” News