Gardens lowers tax rate; bills may still increase with values
PALM BEACH GARDENS — Palm Beach Gardens officials approved a budget Thursday that includes money to create jobs, continue publishing the city magazine, maintain parks and recreation facilities and offer economic development incentives.
Helping pay for those expenses, the city’s overall value increased to $11.54 billion this year, an increase of 6.12 percent over last year. New construction accounts for $186 million, according to Palm Beach County Property Appraiser figures.
The council set the total tax rate at $5.60 for every $1,000 of assessed value, down from last year’s rate of $5.67.
Although the tax rate went down, because of rising property values, the owner of a typical property assessed at $400,000 after the $50,000 homestead exemption would pay about $26 more in taxes, according to city estimates. A homeowner’s city tax bill in that example will be $2,293 a year under the new budget.
The owner of a home assessed at $200,000 after the exemption could see a roughly $16 yearly increase, according to city documents. Palm Beach Gardens is tapping $527,000 from budget stabilization reserves this year to avoid increasing the tax rate, but the city will still have more than $23 million in that reserve account and unassigned reserves.
Five-year projections call for gradually reducing reserves through the 2023 financial year to minimize the need for a future tax increase if voters statewide approve an additional $25,000 homestead exemption in November.
Officials expect to replenish the reserves as real estate projects such as Avenir, the residential and commercial development on western Northlake Boulevard, get added to the tax rolls.
Mayor Maria Marino said the depletion of reserves concerned her.
“I know we all wanted a tax decrease, which it’s obvious that it’s impossible to do,” she said at the city’s first budget hearing earlier this month, noting costs go up every year.
Councilman Matthew Lane asked why residents should have to pay more taxes this year than last year.
“We have certain demands,” such as contractual obligations and operational needs, finance administrator Allan Owens said. “The way I look at it is we’re investing now. You know the old axiom you have to invest money to make money? Well, that’s coming down the road, but we have to prepare ourselves for that time when those things do come online.”
Palm Beach Gardens annexed several communities on western Northlake Boulevard and is providing services to them at a cost before it sees all the revenues, Owens said.
The new budget provides for 16 new, full-time jobs. Six of those are police officers to account for growth. The city also plans to hire a police services specialist to keep up with more public records requests, particularly those related to body-worn cameras.
A new fire rescue division chief of training will handle an increased workload because of expanded service areas and additional staff. The developers of Avenir will pay all costs associated with a new senior planner dedicated to handling the development.
Three part-time positions — a support specialist in the city clerk’s office, a records clerk in the neighborhood services department and a permit technician in the construction services department — are getting bumped up to full-time.
The spending plan provides money for contractual raises for police, firefighters and service employees, as well as nonunion employees.
The budget sets aside $2.3 million for economic incentives to lure bioscience and technology companies or keep them here.
Councilman Mark Marciano said he watched how the city responded to the budget crisis years earlier when he was on the budget oversight board, and he assumes the city is careful about how it spends.
Last year he asked if the council could consider a small reduction in the tax rate.
“I’m kind of glad we didn’t because if we did, we would have less dollars in reserve,” Marciano said. “We didn’t see a hurricane coming. We didn’t see the need to provide additional funding for police.”
The federal government has not yet reimbursed Palm Beach Gardens for about $1.6 million it spent to clean up after Hurricane Irma.
Earlier this year, faced with the possibility of losing 14 police officers to the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office, the council approved 6 percent raises. Those raises, which took effect in August, are in addition to the 6 percent raises police are due Oct. 1 under the terms of their Police Benevolent Association contract.
“When you just look at where the expenses are going, what we’re spending the money on and what our projections are, I think it’s a fair budget,” Marciano said.