By SUZANNE MARINO
Staff Writer
MARGATE – It is time to sharpen the pencils in Margate and see what department requests and fixed costs are going to amount to for the city in terms of an annual budget. The Margate city commissioners sat down with their auditor, Robert Cagnassola of Suplee, Clooney and Co. for a special meeting Thursday, March 1.
What Cagnassola had to tell the commissioners is that Margate is sitting pretty in terms of surplus.
“You had a very good year, gentlemen,” the auditor said. “You had an exceptional year in generating surplus.” Fund balance, or surplus, is income the municipality has over its budgetary requirements. It is rainy day money in case of an emergency, and it is money that is used to offset tax increases in the upcoming year.
Margate has $3.5 million in surplus.
The total budget for Margate is $38,557,201. That amount includes local school taxes of $10,173,118 and $10,585,835 in county taxes.
The amount to be raised by local purpose taxes is $17,838,498.
Cagnassola advised the commissioners that he thinks the city could use $2.2 million of that surplus to offset taxes for residents because it is money the city will replace through fees and funding such as third-party ambulance billing.
The use of that surplus would result in less than one cent increase for Margate residents in the local purpose tax.
“When you know your residents are going to get an increase from the schools and from the county, you can make it a little easier by using surplus to keep the local purpose tax down,” said Cagnassola.
Cagnassola said that now the department heads could go back and look closer at their requests.
“Anything can be changed up until the time you adopt the budget,” advised the auditor.
