Sunday, August 21, 2011
The City Manager got the go-ahead to request budget money to create the new position.
The city manager has received the go-ahead to request funding for the employment of someone who would head economic development efforts in New Port Richey. The green light from the city council at a work session Tuesday came with caveats. One of the biggest? Don’t pay for the new job with the city’s annual subsidy for Greater New Port Richey Main Street, a nonprofit charged with downtown economic development. The new proposed job stems from an idea Deputy Mayor Rob Marlowe raised on August 9. He brought up the notion of creating a staff position to coordinate Greater New Port Richey Main Street and handle economic development. He asked that the City Council hold a work session on the subject. Council members cannot vote at a work session, …
Friday, July 29, 2011
Oh, what change an $800,000 deficit can bring.
In February, the New Port Richey City Council torpedoed a proposal to charge a fee to park at the Sims Park Boat Ramp, on the west bank of the Pithlachascotee River. On Tuesday, the notion resurfaced. Confronted with the task of plugging a projected $800,000-deficit in the proposed fiscal year 2012 general fund budget, which takes effect Oct. 1, the council decided it should take another look at the fees. In a discusion of the $16.026 million general fund budget, the New Port Richey Recreation and Aquatic Center took center stage. The city's general fund will need to subsidize $776,000 of the center's operating costs in the upcoming fiscal year. In addition, paymemts need to continue to be made on a $14 million debt service on the center. …
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
With no millage increase, the major county funds will see a $3 million decline in revenue.
County commissioners on Tuesday will start their summer ritual of crafting a budget amid a continuing decline in revenue and less money than the previous year. With no tax increase, two of the county's major funds will have $3.3 million less in property taxes than the 2010-11 budget that ends Sept. 30. Property tax values, a major source for county tax revenue, have fallen more than $11 billion in the last four years, an amount wiping out gains in new construction values amassed over the past 19 years. One of the cuts in the proposed budget calls for shuttering pools at the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex and the Veteran’s Recreation Center. The county administration is proposing no millage increase for the fiscal year running from Oct. 1…
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
New Port Richey plans to use reserves to avoid millage increases, but it seems each time a revenue hole in the proposed $16 million spending plan is plugged, an unexpected expenditure pops up.
For local governments, balancing budgets in an era of fiscal stress can be like playing Whac-A-Mole. Pound out a solution to one revenue hole, and an unexpected expenditure pops up. The only option is to continue beating away until the buzzer blares Oct. 1, when the new budget takes effect. So it is with the New Port Richey City Council, which learned Tuesday that there are solutions to plug an $800,000 deficit in the city's proposed $16 million general fund Fiscal Year 2012 budget, but it will take luck and timing to do so without raising millage rates. The three-and-a-half hour presentation on the 292-page spending plan rehashed old quandaries while introducing several new potentially significant problems, including an unanticipated $400…
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Despite a tight budget and proposed 'roll-back' 8.44 millage rate, although highest in the city in 33 years, will have little effect on most tax bills and could 'drop back a little bit' by September.
New Port Richey property owners will pay about the same in city property taxes in 2012 that they paid this year if preliminary budget projections remain viable through September. The New Port Richey City Council received a preliminary 292-page Fiscal Year 2012 spending plan Tuesday in anticipation of its first formal budget workshop on July 12. The proposed $16 million general fund budget, which includes an $800,000 deficit, varies little from an informal plan discussed in May, despite last week's revelation that the city's taxable value declined by $40.575 million in 2011; from $601 million last year to $560.424 million this year. Interim City Finance Director Jack Douglas said the Pasco County Appraiser's Office accurately forecast the 6…
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Is dillution the solution? Proposed name changes make no mention of sexual or domestic violence.
The Domestic and Sexual Violence Task Force of Pasco County tentatively voted in late May to drop "domestic and sexual violence" from its common-use name and expand its services in East Pasco. While the new name is "Family and Community Enhancement Task Force of East Pasco," the goup is still operating as the only countywide domestic and sexual violence task force. In addition, West Pasco's Domestic Violence Task force is not included in these changes at all and is a separate operation. Why change the name? It's a different name for “marketing purposes” while the grant money still rolls in under the official legal name, according to the explanation provided by Sunrise of Pasco. That means for bylaws and grants, it's legal name remains as "…
Derek Smith
8:09 pm on Saturday, July 30, 2011
Sims Park was donated by George Sims to the CITY with the stipulation that it remained a public park (Ordinance 1). The boat ramp however, was developed by the city through the Florida Boating Improvement Fund. more ›