A message about the Fiscal Year 2025 budget from Cynthia W. Curry, Gainesville City Manager

Press release from City of Gainesville

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Although we face challenges, it is helpful to pause a moment and look back at how far we have come. In the past three years, the City of Gainesville has gone from receiving a Government Services Contribution (GSC) from Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) of $38 million in Fiscal Year 2021, to $36 million in Fiscal Year 2022, to $34 million in Fiscal Year 2023, to just $15.3 million in Fiscal Year 2024. That substantial downward adjustment eliminated approximately 10 percent of our budgeted General Fund revenue.

It is important to note the traditional role of a municipal utility includes serving as a crucial source of funding for its community. That is true across the country. It is why a transfer is part of the shared history of the City and utility, providing supplemental funding for public services such as infrastructure maintenance, fire and police protection, and parks and recreational facilities.

We are a City with a responsibility to its citizenry to provide these services at an acceptable level. The contention that the City of Gainesville should receive no funds from its municipal utility contradicts the purpose of a public utility and goes against standard industry practice.

The only way to deal with that reality is to face it head-on. We are developing a budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2025 that recognizes this fundamental change at the heart of the City’s longstanding relationship with its utility.

The Fiscal Year 2025 annual budget, still under development, hovers around $155 million. We are building on a three-year pattern of sound fiscal decisions, stabilizing even as we anticipate a further reduction of $6.8 million to the GSC that lowers it from $15.3 million to $8.5 million in Fiscal Year 2025.

A narrative has emerged from the GRU Authority Board that suggests the transfer has been used to give the City more money than the utility earned. Specifically, this analysis undertakes to illustrate that the utility “overpaid” the City of Gainesville by $68 million over the course of several years.

Although GRU has claimed this figure is “verified,” that verification comes only from GRU.

It is important to state the utility’s financial data can be analyzed in a number of ways. Additional information will be shared at the Gainesville City Commission Special Meeting tomorrow, June 18 (1:00 p.m.).

Gainesville City Commission meetings are broadcast on Community 12TV on Cox Channel 12, livestreamed on the City’s website and Facebook page , and archived online. The commission meetings also are streamed on GNV TV through Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices.

Sincerely,
Cynthia W. Curry
Gainesville City Manager

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