News

By Tim O’Meilia

A divided Ocean Ridge Town Commission approved a $5.6 million town budget that will require dipping into town reserves for more than a third of a million dollars but keep the tax rate at the current level.
    Commissioners split over spending $53,000 on a 3 percent cost-of-living increase for nonunion employees and more than $238,000 for a wish list of new computers, three new vehicles, a second full-time maintenance position and salary boosts for some police employees.
    “I’m very pleased,” said Commissioner Gail Adams Aaskov. “Residents are still paying the same millage rate and I’m all for that.”
    Commissioners Zoanne Hennigan and Ed Brookes were opposed to taking $343,000 from town reserves to balance the budget.
    “I don’t think we can be happy as a group taking 10 percent of our reserves to balance the budget,” Brookes said.
    Hennigan wanted to carve $132,000 from the budget by cutting the cost-of-living increases, the maintenance position and a police car, bucket truck and beach all-terrain vehicle.
    “Their current pay is well within guidelines for towns like us,” Hennigan said of the employees’ cost-of-living boost, referring to a statewide salary survey. The town’s unionized police will get a 3 percent raise next year in the new budget.
    “I’ve been in private business for 27 years. It comes down to how much you get paid,” said Mayor Geoff Pugh. “Do we want to pay a little more for experience to retain the people we have? The raise is not outrageous.”
    The new budget, which went into effect Oct. 1, adds $238,000 from a town wish list that includes $61,000 for computer equipment, $16,000 for  a second police car, $22,000 for a maintenance position, $14,500 for an ATV and $20,000 for a used bucket truck and $36,000 for additional raises for the police chief, lieutenant and two dispatchers.
    “Are we nickeling or diming this?” said Pugh over the maintenance position. “This is not Fellsmere. This is Ocean Ridge. People have a little higher expectations.” Pugh and other commissioners agreed to cut the ATV and the bucket truck, saving $34,500, but no one else supported the cut.
    “It’s clear there’s not a will to do this,” said Brookes of his effort to eliminate dipping into reserves to balance the budget.
    Commissioners also split over the tax rate by a 3-2 vote. The $5.35 per $1,000 of taxable property value matches this year’s rate.
    “By setting the millage rate the same is really a tax increase. That’s not keeping the tax flat,” Brookes said, because town property values increased.
    The owner of a home with a taxable value of $1 million after exemptions would see a town tax increase from $5,350 to $5,570 if the property value increased by the average 3.87 percent in Ocean Ridge.