By Steve Plunkett
For the third year in a row, Gulf Stream will likely levy the same property tax rate: $3.67 per $1,000 of taxable value.
Also, like last year, resurfacing roads and improving drainage in the Core district consumes the bulk of the town’s proposed FY 2025 budget. Town Manager Greg Dunham set aside $10 million in the general fund and $2 million in the water fund for the capital improvement project.
And he anticipates borrowing perhaps $7 million this fall to keep the town’s unrestricted reserves above $4 million as construction continues and as the town prepares to switch its water provider from Delray Beach to Boynton Beach.
Otherwise, the budget he and Mark Bymaster, his chief finance officer, presented July 12 to town commissioners was fairly ho-hum.
“This is very much like the seven previous budgets that I’ve presented to the town,” Dunham said. “I will say this from the outset, this is really a normal Gulf Stream budget.”
Included are $132,500 to buy two police cruisers and $40,000 to repair the sea wall at the town’s bird sanctuary south of the Hidden Harbour neighborhood.
After surveying other towns, Dunham is recommending a 4% cost-of-living adjustment to town workers’ paychecks. He said he prefers giving COLA raises over handing out merit raises, which typically require an end-of-year evaluation.
“This is a small town, 20 employees,” he said. “I do an assessment of everybody on every day of the week.”
Town commissioners tentatively approved the $3.67 per $1,000 rate, which will bring in roughly $400,000 more in tax revenue than the $6.1 million that Gulf Stream collected the previous year. The owner of a house with a $1 million taxable value would pay $3,672 in town property taxes in addition to county, school and other levies.
Commissioners can lower that rate but not raise it at public hearings they scheduled for 5:01 p.m. on Sept. 13, after their regular monthly meeting, and on Sept. 24. But to do so, they said, would require dipping into reserves.
“I like running the surplus up,” Commissioner Michael Greene said.
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