BOCC Juggles to Keep Millage Rate Flat

BRADENTON -- At Wednesday's budget meeting, County Administrator Ed Hunzeker and Financial Management Director Jim Seuffert reviewed selected programs slated to be funded in Manatee County's FY-2015 budget. The goal: to keep the AdValorem millage rate unchanged from 2014 at 6.4326.

In effort to reach a non-deficit (and not reach into the Stabilization Fund), cuts to requested programs had to be evaluated.

A rise in property value lent some flexibility by adding nearly $1 million in new revenues that when added to the TIF revenue collected brought the goal within almost $400,000 of the target. 

Of the programs requesting funding, a tentative few whittled the shortfall down from $400,000 to $115,000 for FY-2015. 

Some of those sacrificed programs that helped to bring the proposal down to $115,000 were a non-county tennis court maintenance program ($114,216) and the expansion of a senior center ($50,000).

Not wanting to make further cuts or raise the millage rate, commissioners struggled with finding funds. Then Sheriff Steube stepped up to the podium and suggested the $115,000 be taken temporarily from his allotted amount, if at a later date, the dollars could be worked back into his budget.

Seuffert suggested that it could work, and the proposed millage rate and requested programs were penciled in.

A motion to authorize the administrator to prepare the documentation needed to set the Ad Valorem rate at 6.4326 was approved unanimously