By Jane Smith
Delray Beach is undergoing a cultural shift where departmental silos are breaking down and city employees are working together in hopes of saving taxpayers money.
The enthusiasm of city staff was palpable when department heads talked about their budgets before the City Commission in mid-July. But staff at two of its agencies — the Downtown Development Authority and Community Redevelopment Agency — feverishly reviewed their budgets, knowing they would have to justify expenses.
“It’s a very good news story,” said Jack Warner, the city’s chief financial officer, when talking about the 2015-16 budget. “But we are not finished yet.”
From its $110.3 million budget, the city spends about 62 percent on personnel and an additional 10 percent goes to its CRA and nonprofits. With those restrictions, Warner recommended keeping the operational rate flat, while the debt service rate fell by 9 percent, to give taxpayers an overall reduction of 0.4 percent.
Because property values rose this year by 10.2 percent, most taxpayers will pay more under the $7.44 rate approved unanimously by the commission. Public hearings will be held in September, when the commission may lower the tax rate.
Commissioners wanted to be able to give residents reasons for not reducing taxes.
“There are a lot of ideas thrown out there on how to reduce our millage. Some people say stop funding nonprofits, some people say get rid of the CRA, some people say consolidate the Fire Department with the county and some people say charge for parking,” Commissioner Jordana Jarjura said. “It would be helpful to know the cost of each of those and then the residents would say, ‘You know what, I am comfortable paying the 7.1 percent (without debt service) because I want to keep all those things.’ ”
In May, a divided commission voted 3-2 against adding downtown parking meters, which would have generated $3.6 million annually.
CRA pays for nonprofits
The CRA board selected Munilytics Inc. on July 23 to analyze the effect of losing tax increment revenues in each of its eight areas, as requested by the City Commission. The results are expected in October.
For the next budget year, the city asked its CRA to pay the total cost of the revamped Clean and Safe program at $2.3 million, a 27 percent increase, and cover an additional $100,000 of the Delray Beach Public Library operating budget, or slightly more than 20 percent. The agency is limited by a 25 percent cap for nonprofits. It also will donate $275,000 (18 percent) to the Creative City Collaborative, the group that runs the Arts Garage.
EPOCH, the organization that runs the Spady Museum, will receive 25 percent, or $59,425, of its operating budget from the CRA. Delray Beach Center for the Arts, which runs programs at the Old School Square complex, will receive $289,900, or 14.5 percent, of its operating budget. The Delray Beach Historical Society —included for the first time — will receive $45,000, or 21.8 percent, of its operating budget.
The CRA has a proposed $28.2 million budget next year, which includes $8.9 million in city tax increment revenues, $6 million from the county tax increment revenues and $5.6 million in carry-over money for projects that are unfinished.
The leftover projects aggravated CRA board members because they pay $97,557 for a project engineer who is part of the city’s Environmental Services Department.
“We are carrying 20 percent of our budget because nothing gets done,” said CRA board member Paul Zacks. He wants to meet the engineer the CRA pays for, “call him into the principal’s office.”
Instead, Randall Krejcarek, his supervisor and department director, will be asked to attend the CRA August workshop.
The agency’s top capital improvement item weighs in at $2.8 million for the Arts Warehouse construction.
The CRA tallied the amount it will pay for city projects, services and nonprofit programs to be $14.7 million, nearly $5.8 million more than it receives in city tax revenue.
“How could they survive without us?” incoming CRA Chair Reggie Cox asked at the group’s budget meeting on July 22.
The agency will borrow from a $6 million line of credit if it can’t sell the former library and chamber site to the iPic developers. The iPic project will come before the City Commission on Aug. 18.
DDA proposes tax increase
The DDA presented its proposed budget of $759,929 to the City Commission on July 14. Commissioners agreed to the proposed tax rate of 1 mill, which would give the DDA $689,989 in tax revenues. The tax rate can be lowered in September. The city is surveying property owners and renters in the district; results will be given in August.
The proposed budget includes $15,000 for West Atlantic to do a small research project on the target audience and how to reach it. The DDA initially had budgeted $5,000 before hearing a presentation from a West Atlantic consultant on July 13.
That increased allocation pleased Vice Mayor Shelly Petrolia. “The branding was brought out in the Delray Meets Delray event,” she said. “It’s very important and so key to what is happening in West Atlantic.”
In other action, commissioners asked the city manager to explore the cost of constructing a prefab facility on city land to store its 100-foot Christmas tree, instead of spending $1 million to buy a replacement tree.
Delray Beach
Proposed tax rate: $7.44 per $1,000 of taxable value*
2014-15 tax rate: $7.46 per $1,000 of taxable value*
Change in property value: 10.2 percent increase
Total budget (operating and capital): $110.3 million
Public hearings: 7 p.m. Sept. 3 and Sept. 15 at City Hall
*Debt service included.
2015-16 tax rate may be lowered, but not raised at the September hearings.
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