Florence City Council passes budget without millage increase

FLORENCE — Florence City Council during a special Monday adopted an operating budget of $64,716,500 that doesn’t include any millage increases, but does include an extra $200,000 because of a change in the business license revenue projection.

It also doesn’t include adoption of the capital budget, which will be considered at another meeting.

“The capital budget could possibly include another revenue increase, but they don’t know that yet,” Florence City Manager David Williams said. “Council has to consider other options and they have about 45 days to do that because we’re required to give the county auditor’s office our millage for next year so they they can begin the appropriation of the tax bills for 2009.

“So, right now, our millage hasn’t changed. It may or may not depending on the outcome of the next 45 days, but we do have a budget we can begin operating under on July 1.”

The capital budget consists of construction of major items.

“This would include such things as a fire station,” Williams said. “The reason we divide that out is the revenues sources are different. Even if you raise taxes for that, there are different procedures, restrictions and requirement related to that.”

Williams said the capital budget depends on how much money council decides to raise through, perhaps, additional millage, so council can’t put a number on it until it knows how much it may agree to raise through increases in the millage.

“We have identified needs of about $9.5 million in capital needs, but probably that wouldn’t be done in the first year or the second year,” he said. “You tend to look at capital budgets long-term.

“If you do a tax increase to fund those things, you’re looking probably at borrowed money and the additional tax revenue is used to make the debt service on that borrowed money. So that’s why you look over a period of years rather than one year at a time.”

Mayor Stephen J. Wukela said during his campaign he repeatedly emphasized the city’s urgent need for an additional fire station and additional police officers, among other public safety needs.

“I consistently pushed for that and I believe that although there’s never a good time to tax, that the modest increases the city would see by my proposal are acceptable costs to avert the devastating increases that we will likely see in insurance premiums and continued increases in crime if we don’t do now what we should have done many years ago,” he said. “That’s been my position and, as often is the case when government is confronted with a difficult situation, government appoints a committee as it did today. I think we’ve got pretty good consensus that we need those policemen and that fire station, but the council has to really find the courage to raise the revenue necessary to do that.”

Wukela said the budget passed Monday doesn’t provide any money for the proposed no-kill Florence Area Humane Society animal shelter, a new fire station, additional police officers, the operation of a tennis facility already under construction or the building of parking deck for the Francis Marion University Performing Arts Center to which the city is committed.

“The one thing we did chose to do that I am pleased with is, at least, delay in funding the (Florence) Downtown Development Corp.’s request for $80,000 for consulting,” Wukela said. “To fund $80,000 for consulting when we’re not willing to fund policemen to patrol downtown or an additional fire station to protect our property seems to me unseemly.”