Gainesville City Commission restores previously proposed cuts to police and fire departments in third budget meeting

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a June 18 Special Meeting, the Gainesville City Commission held its third budget workshop for the 2025 Fiscal Year and heard recommendations to restore cuts in the police and fire department that were previously presented to the Commission. The first meeting was described here , and the second meeting was described here .

Methodology for calculating General Fund Transfer

While introducing the presentation, City Manager Cynthia Curry said she didn’t want to go “tit-for-tat with GRU,” but “it’s simply the fact that [revenues and the General Fund Transfer from GRU] represent approximately 10% of our General Fund budget.” She said the $68 million that the GRU Authority has decided to withhold over 10 years is “not so much in question, but… there are other ways of viewing those numbers that are not against, you know, generally accepted principles of finance.”

Curry said Office of Budget & Management Director Steve Varvel would present alternate formulas to calculate the fund transfer, but “the decision doesn’t really lie with us. It really is on the GRU side.”

In his presentation, Varvel said there had been years when GRU had paid the City more than it made (depending on how that is calculated), but by using different methods, that number could be $19 million, $21 million, or $68 million.

After Commissioner Bryan Eastman gave several examples of why he disagreed with the methodology that led to the $68 million number, Mayor Harvey Ward said, “Let’s be careful of going off the deep end with what-ifs in the numbers, because it’s a never-ending game… All of the preceding conversation was to go on the record with these numbers, not to help [the GRU Authority] decide how much they’re going to transfer to the General Government budget for the coming year. That’s their decision, and they’ll make it the way they wish. This is just to help us and the community understand a little better how some of these numbers are arrived at.”

Budgets for remaining departments

Executive Chief of Staff Cintya Ramos gave a presentation about the budgets for the departments that had not yet been presented; the presentation can be seen here .

Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area

Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area (GCRA), which does not get any money from the City’s General Fund, proposed a $393k increase in salaries and benefits over the FY24 adopted budget, including the addition of a Program Manager 4, who will use mapping technology to collect and display data. Two other positions were added to the department via a budget amendment in FY24. The budget proposes an additional $244k in operating expenses and a reduction of $882k in aid to private organizations, for an overall increase of about $133k, or 1.9% more than the FY24 adopted budget. The same changes would be proposed for GCRA, regardless of the General Fund Transfer (GFT) from GRU, because the funds come from an Interlocal Agreement with Alachua County and carry-forward funds from the former Community Reinvestment Areas that were consolidated to create the department. This budget funds the downtown detail that is managed by the Public Works Department.

Housing and Community Development

The Department of Housing and Community Development only takes about $474k per year from the General Fund; most of its funding comes from grants. The proposed budget recommends a $16k reduction in salaries and benefits and a $2k increase in operating expenses, for an overall reduction of 2.9% from the FY24 adopted General Fund budget. If the GFT is increased above zero (the GRU Authority has currently set it at $8.5 million), the department would add some operating expenses.

Sustainable Development

The Department of Sustainable Development, which administers the City’s Comprehensive Plan and codes, proposed an increase of about $3k in salaries and benefits and a reduction of about $220k in operating expenses, for an overall 6.3% decrease from the adopted FY24 budget. The recommendations include eliminating a vacant Strategic Customer Experience Supervisor and eliminating funding for external legal services, aid to private organizations, and some other expenses. The City Manager recommended maintaining funding for a Permit Expediter that was initially proposed for elimination.

Transportation

The Transportation Department’s General Fund budget is only projected to be $1.4 million for FY25 because most of its funding comes from grants. The proposed changes to the General Fund budget include a $53k decrease in salaries and benefits and a $63k increase in operating expenses, for an overall 0.7% decrease from the adopted FY24 budget. The City Manager recommends that staff continue working to develop a new service contract with the University of Florida, maintain free fares for residents over 65 and under 18 years of age, and maintain free bus passes for City employees.

Bus fare increase proposed

Chief Operating Officer Andrew Persons said the City is considering a fare increase to $2.00 a ride; fares have not increased since 2009. However, because fares can’t be increased solely on individuals between 18 and 65 years of age due to federal regulations, that also increases the budget implications of the “free” fares.

The current plan is to eliminate 27 vacant positions, eliminate one filled position, and eliminate holiday service.

Commissioner Ed Book said he was concerned about the program and service impacts in the department: “I think this is the department that you need to be extremely progressive about the way that you’re looking into every aspect of it,… taking a look at your fares, your trends, the way we deliver the transportation,… a real analysis of our ridership so we can benefit the people who most need that ridership, which means our routes need to mirror areas where we know people are getting on those buses and getting to places that allow both economic development and job and education opportunities.”

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut asked how much the Fare Free program costs the City, and Persons said that the City and County each put in $115,000. He also told her that only about 2,000 people typically use the holiday service; ridership is typically 25,000 per day during the Fall and Spring semesters and about 12,000 per day in the summer.

Concerned about the proposed fare increase, Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker said, “I just simply ask that as you continue this exercise, that… we are able to still make riding the bus something that is accessible, something that is affordable, because the same individuals have to pay increased GRU rates and everything else. So the 50 cent increase that doesn’t sound like a lot to some of us, actually is a lot to others.”

The GRU Authority voted on June 10 to keep utility rates flat in the next fiscal year.

Commissioner Casey Willits said he thought it was more important to protect the routes than avoid an increase in the fares, “but my preference would always be to not have to do any of this. My preference would be to get the full [GFT] of $15.3 million so we don’t have to do this, so we keep holiday service.”

Persons clarified that as discussions with UF continue, there are likely to be changes to routes and service.

Non-departmental

Non-departmental expenditures “don’t necessarily align with one department, but they spread throughout the City,” according to Ramos. The general fund budget increases salaries and benefits from zero to $185k, reduces operating expenses by $673k, increases aid to private organizations by $200k, increases debt service from zero to $14 million, and decreases transfers by $16 million, for an overall reduction of 7.4% from the adopted FY24 budget.

The impacts of the proposed changes include the elimination of contingency funding and the elimination of the marketing program for City services, funding for the NCF Regional Planning Council, and transfers to the Roadway Resurfacing Fund. The City Manager recommended maintaining funding for all outside agency grants, restoring funding of $1.5 million in FY25 for GRACE, maintaining funding for the Fare Free program and the employee bus pass program, and increased funding for the Combined Communications Center (as part of a long-standing interlocal agreement to fund that entity).

Revenue estimates

Ramos said the overall revenue estimates for FY25 are about $2.8 million less than FY24 – a 7.2% reduction.

Based on the assumption that the GFT will be $8.5 million, the City Manager recommends restoring previously-proposed reductions of one position in Communications & Marketing, five positions in Financial Services (but funding for three of those will be frozen), two Community Resource Paramedicine positions in Gainesville Fire Rescue, and one position in Human Resources. One position was restored in Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs, along with funding for part-time aquatics staff, funding for Free Fridays, enhanced summer youth programs, and the Wilhelmina Johnson Center. In addition, Ironwood Golf Course will continue operating, pending an analysis from a consultant.

Twenty vacant sworn officer positions and an Assistant Chief position were restored to the Gainesville Police Department, although the funding was frozen for the sworn officer positions (another 26 vacant positions will continue to be funded so more officers can be hired), and funding for overtime and body-worn cameras was restored. Nine positions in Public Works were recommended for restoration, along with funding for streetlights and poles and additional funding for security at City Hall.

No increase in property tax rates recommended

Ramos said the current estimates show a deficit of $10.3 million before the GFT is added; if the GFT remains at $8.5 million, the estimated deficit is $1.8 million. The City Manager is not currently recommending any increase in property tax rates.

Service Level Agreement with GRU for IT services

The City currently pays GRU $2.9 million annually for IT services, but the GRU Authority has indicated they will raise that to $5.9 million for FY25, prompting the City to explore other options.

A presentation from consultant BerryDunn concluded that GRU does “a lot of great work” in providing IT services for the City and provides a “relatively good” response when there are problems, but there are “definitely some gaps” in strategic initiatives and integration of new business systems. The consultant added, “It’s nice, but I think it’s a little more than what General Government requires.” She said the cost allocation between GRU and the City is “not equitable” because it’s based on a percentage of Microsoft 365 licenses in each entity, “and the complexity of costs and time spent by GRU IT staff is not that simplistic. We can’t just divide by the number of users and really have an equitable share of the cost.”

The consultant’s recommendation was to create an in-house IT support services team within General Government, which could result in savings of 25% to 40% after the initial investment to set it up. She said that would take some time, and GRU would need to work with General Government during the transition period, and she recommended negotiating a new Memorandum of Understanding to cover the transition.

Ward said, “I will tell you right off the bat, even if there were not a 25 to 40% reduction possible, I think the risk is in having this off-site. To support all the services of General Government, to include police and fire, that needs to be in-house.”

Willits said, “The idea of a 40% savings is pretty stark… Something has to be different than what was done in the past, and one way of doing it, perhaps, is to bring it in-house to General Government. Even if GRU governance comes back to us on November 6, it still needs to be on the General Government side because of the, perhaps dramatically, two different types of functions IT needs to do in a utility space versus General Government space.”

Ward: “We will continue to deliver. We have continued to deliver through all this foolishness.”

In conclusion, Ward said, “I want you all to know, anybody who’s watching, that we will continue to deliver. We have continued to deliver through all this foolishness. And I’ll use that word very specifically, all this foolishness – this stuff happens, and the people who work for the City of Gainesville continue, day in and day out, to deliver a magnificent experience and magnificent value to the people who depend on this City. And I’m really proud of all of you… What we do here and the value that we provide to our community is excellent. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise; it just is. We’re going to continue, through the Manager’s office and through this Commission, to deliver those excellent services with our community builders to the people of Gainesville, no matter what sideshows pop up around us.”

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