News

By Dan Moffett

    Briny Breezes is looking at a budget for the new fiscal year that is largely a mirror image of last year’s numbers.
    During July budget workshops, Town Council members gave preliminary approval to keeping the current tax rate of $10 per $1,000 of assessed value and holding the line on expenditures with a general fund budget of $662,330 that shows about a 3.8 percent increase in expenses, compared with the 2013-14 fiscal year.
    Taxable values in Briny crept up 0.52 percent over the last year, from $35.21 million to $35.39 million, according the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office. The town figures to generate about $345,000 in ad valorem tax revenues.
    “Our property values are pretty stable,” said council President Sue Thaler. “We don’t have any construction project going on that’s going to increase our property values quite a lot.”
    The town’s biggest expenses — police service from Ocean Ridge, which comes in slightly under last year’s cost at $210,000 this year, and fire-rescue service from Boynton Beach, which increases 4 percent annually — will cost about $540,000, almost 81 percent of the general fund budget. But Briny Breezes Inc., the corporation that owns the town’s property, will pay about 37 percent of the combined bill: $120,510 for fire-rescue and $77,350 for police.
    The council will hold two public hearings in September on the proposed budget.