Public hearing tonight; Margate slices penny off tax rate
MARGATE – Property owners in Margate will find a break on their municipal property tax bills this year. The City Commissioners sat down with the auditor last week and agreed that with a little belt-tightening in each department, the tax rate could be brought down one cent.
When the initial budget was prepared, the city commissioners had agreed that a modest increase of one-tenth of a cent would be in order to sustain the budget.
Since the introduction of the initial budget, which called for $17,838,498 to be raised by taxes, a final audit has been completed by Bob Cagnassola and Bob Swisher of Suplee Clooney Associates. Through a line-by-line examination, the auditor located an additional $60,000.
“You never have exact figures until the final audit is completed,” said Swisher.
Commissioner of Public Safety John Swift said he would be able to make cuts to his police and fire budget and came up with $80,000 in efficiencies in overtime and by establishing a hiring freeze. Commissioner of Public Works Sigmund Rimm said he would work to find savings and managed to chisel an additional $25,000 from the street department budget. Mayor Vaughn Reale worked to find another $13,000 from the finance side of the budget in the tax assessor’s office.
The budget as introduced was already using $2.2 million from surplus to offset taxes while still leaving $1.4 million in the kitty for the next administration to work with. The city fathers decided that the healthy bottom line of Margate would support utilizing a little more of surplus in order to give the taxpayers a break on their bill for the year.
The revised amount to be raised by taxes, $17,394,435, is a 2.26 percent reduction over the 2006 spending plan. The tax rate for the city drops from $0.530 per $100 of assessed property value to $0.518. The tax bill on a $100,000 home will be $518, down from $529.65 in 2006.
To accomplish that the city fathers will use $2,291,000 in surplus while still leaving $1,400,992 for the future and giving property owners a cut on the tax rate of slightly more than 1 cent.
“We have never raided the surplus in this city, and I want to leave a healthy amount for the next administration,” said Commissioner Rimm, with Reale and Swift in agreement.
The ratable base in Margate is $3,360,431,100, up slightly more than $50 million from the previous year.
The public hearing on the Margate City budget is scheduled for 6 p.m. tonight, Thursday, April 19. TOP
