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Delray Beach could turn to fire service fee to balance budget
By David Sedore, Palm Beach Business.com
DELRAY BEACH — For the last two years, Delray Beach city commissioners have toyed with the idea of establishing a fire service fee as a means of filling gaping holes in the budget.
And for the last two years, they’ve rejected the idea, focusing instead on spending cuts and using reserves in order to make ends meet.
Faced with a fourth consecutive year of declining revenue, commissioners warmed to the the idea of finally pulling the trigger on the fee as a means of filling a $3 million budget gap. Commissioners began the process of setting the budget for the fiscal year that begins October 1 Tuesday evening as City Manager David Harden outlined various options.
Establishing the fee would allow commissioners to avoid raising property tax rates, Harden said. In fact, it’s conceivable that rates might come down, while allowing the city to avoid deep cuts in services.
Both Boca Raton and Boynton Beach have fire service fees already in place. It’s a flat fee in both cities. A fee of $60 to $70 a property in Delray Beach probably would be sufficient to close the budget gap.
“I’m very much in favor of this,” Commissioner Adam Frankel said. “Everybody gets hit the same. To me, that’s a reasonable amount for everyone to share.”
An alternative would be to raise the property tax rate, which now sits at $7.19 per $1,000 of assessed value. But the property tax system in Florida is so screwed up as to be inequitable, commissioners said.
Other alternatives that Harden outlined include offering incentives for early retirement to eligible city employees. The city has yet to lay off any employees but that’s likely to change this year, especially as new technology makes City Hall more efficient, and as state and local grants dry up. Enticing some workers to retire would ease the pain somewhat.
“We’re at a point where significant cuts have to be made in the way we deliver services,” Harden said.
