The Gainesville City Council held a public hearing Tuesday evening for its proposed $35 million FY 2024 budget.
The $35,075,093 budget would amount to a 1.01% decrease from the FY 2023 adopted budget, according to City Manager Bryan Lackey.
Lackey said the drop primarily follows the phasing out of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds as well as recent changes in the LOST funding agreement with Hall County.
The budget does include a full rollback of the general fund millage rate to 0.239 mills. The general fund millage rate in FY 2023 was 0.397 mills. However, Lackey said this was not the millage rate the city initially planned to proceed with.
“At the previous meeting we knew what our target rollback millage rate was, but because the reassessed growth has been so much, we had to roll back the millage rate so far,” Lackey said. “Usually we go ahead and set the millage rate at the preliminary digest, but this year, because the preliminary digest was so large on increases we were hoping that maybe the tax assessor would take another look at it and bring it down a point or two. But instead, it went the other way, it went up a point or two.”
One change proposed is a 5% cost of living pay increase for all city employees. Additionally, starting pay for City of Gainesville firefighters would increase from $41,095 to $44,084.
The budget features $4.7 million in capital projects, including roadway improvements, the Green Street Pool Site, a series of replacement Gainesville Police vehicles and at least five more WeGo vans.
Read more about the budget by viewing the full document here.
A vote to adopt the proposed budget will be held at 5:30 p.m. on June 20 at the Gainesville Public Safety Complex.
