Proposed Roswell Budget Calls For $13.4 Million In New Spending
By John Fredericks / STAFF
If you are feeling the belt-tightening pinch of a sluggish economy, you might want to apply for a job at Roswell City Hall.
The good times are seemingly rolling there.
The fiscal year 2008-2009 Roswell all funds budget, submitted by city staff for a second and final reading before the public and City Council on Monday night, calls for a year over year spending increase of nearly $13.4 million versus 2007-2008. This represents a whopping 13 percent annual increase. The total proposed budget is nearly $117.8 million.
The additional revenue requested is driven by increased expenses in most line items, which City Administrator Kay Love classified as, “Normal cost additions for doing business.” Other major factors influencing the additional spending request include more city staff, benefits and capital expenditures.
Love added, “This budget does not represent any new city services.”
The proposal accounts for an additional 12 full-time employees and three positions going from part-time to full-time. Nine of the newly created jobs are in the Roswell Police Department. The remaining three positions are in transportation.
The City is also proposing a new benefit to all Roswell employees in the form of a 50 cents on the dollar match for Plan 457 retirement fund donations. The match would cap out at 2 percent of salary and would cost Roswell taxpayers $547,000 in the first year of implementation.
Love said this new benefit expenditure was, “In line with what the other cities in North Fulton County offer, and it rounds out our benefits package. It is an important element of both recruiting and retaining quality municipal employees.”
One of the new revenue sources to fund the added expenses would come from an 8 percent increase in the property tax digest.
“This is not a tax increase,” Love asserted. “It represents the difference in what the City will bill in property taxes year over year based on increased property value assessments. The millage rate is proposed to remain the same. If your tax bill went up, it would be driven by an increase in the assessed value of your property.”
Budget Director Mike Erwin indicated the majority of the funding for the increase in expenses will come from the additional property taxes due to the reassessment referenced above, ($3.4 million), sales tax ($750,000), fees ($470,000), licenses and permits ($270,000), and capital reserve funding, among other sources.
“The city’s reserve policy is 25 percent of total expenses, or three months operating expenses and is projected to be $15,822,081 in fiscal year 2008-2009,” Erwin said.
City administration and finance liaison Councilman Kent Igleheart is expected to introduce a motion to reduce spending levels and rollback the millage rate to equal the $3.4 million in increased property tax revenue.
“I am going to propose a revenue neutral mill rate rollback,” Igleheart promised.
“Roswell home foreclosures are at record levels, gasoline prices are at record levels, unemployment has steadily increased to its highest level in a decade. It is not fiscally responsible for us to increase spending at this rate. Our budget has gone up by 35 percent in the last five years.”
Igleheart concluded, “At some point we have to say, ‘enough.’ The budget just keeps going up. Our government must be cognizant of the economic environment we are in.”
The final budget hearing is on June 16 at Roswell City Hall. At that time Roswell Council members can propose additions or deletions to the proposed budget and it will be voted on in its final form. Public comment is welcome.