Ocala officials discussed the city’s proposed $1.15 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year on Tuesday, just over a month ahead of a scheduled final vote.
The budget for the upcoming fiscal year was presented by Tammi Haslam, the city’s Budget Director, to the Ocala City Council during a work session on Tuesday, August 12.
According to Haslam, the proposed citywide budget for the upcoming fiscal year totals $1,152,885,830. For the proposed budget, the taxable value of the current fiscal year maintains a flat millage rate at 6.6177.
A millage or “mill” rate is a tax applied to the assessed value of a property. For the upcoming fiscal year, the city estimates that each mill will generate approximately $8.1 million in ad valorem revenue (i.e., property taxes).
In total, maintaining the current millage rate will generate approximately $53,614,809 in property taxes next year. That amount is just over $5 million more than the revenue generated during the current fiscal year ($48,584,972).
That ad valorem revenue would be distributed into four main categories: The city’s general fund, road improvements, contributions to police/fire operations, and neighborhood enhancements.
Around $44,500,364, or roughly 83% of the ad valorem revenue, would be put into the city’s general fund. Next fiscal year’s proposed general fund, which is balanced at the current millage rate, is approximately $188,100,612. The general fund uses proposed for next year include $105,533,477 towards city staff salaries and benefits, as well as $41,479,249 in operating costs.
In addition to the general fund, around $6,076,296 of the ad valorem revenue would be used for road improvements, $2,025,432 would be used for police and fire matters, and $1,012,716 would be used for neighborhood enhancements.
According to Haslam, approximately $3.7 million of the general fund would be transferred to the Ocala Community Redevelopment Agency, which is responsible for developing and implementing community redevelopment plans that address the needs of individual portions of the city. Accordingly, the “true” ad valorem revenue going into the general fund would be roughly $40.8 million.
For the next fiscal year, the city has a revenue target for its fire assessment of approximately $18.2 million. The final public hearing for the adoption of that fire assessment will be held on September 11 at 5 p.m. at City Hall (110 SE Watula Avenue).
Over the rest of the meeting, Haslam provided details on the city’s use of general fund dollars, community sponsorships, enterprise funds, and capital improvement projects, among other topics.
To read the complete agenda, to access the city’s complete budget presentation, or to access historically approved budgets, visit the city of Ocala’s website.
The final vote on the budget is scheduled for the Ocala City Council’s regular meeting on Tuesday, September 16. A public hearing for the first reading of the tentative budget is scheduled for Wednesday, September 3.