Peachtree City residents and business owners will get their first chance to provide input on a proposed one-mill tax increase at Thursday’s City Council meeting.
The average Peachtree City homeowner would face a $100 increase in property taxes, which is being billed as necessary to make up for a lack of funding in road and cart path maintenance.
The increase would give the city an additional $1.7 million in revenue for the coming fiscal year. Under the current version of the budget, the city would nearly double its funding for street resurfacing at a cost of $717,000; increase cart path surfacing by $75,000; hire landscaping crews and ditch the less than popular outsourcing process for city landscaping (additional cost of $382,000); set aside 3 percent of total employees’ salary to pay for implementation of a salary study ($405,000) and another $200,000 for bridge and infrastructure maintenance.
The budget also presumes the use of a $3 million facilities bond to repair city facilities such as fire stations and the like. As savings, the budget eliminates funding for a public works director, a reduction of $85,000 though the position remains intact but unfilled.
As for the future, the millage rate would result in the city using about $350,000 in cash reserves over the next four years, which would leave the reserves still in a healthy position the fifth year at 26 percent of the city’s overall annual budget. City policy requires those cash reserves to be kept at a minimum of 20 percent of the city’s annual budget.
The city is projecting to end this fiscal year with a fund balance of 33 percent, equal to about $10.26 million.
In other business, the council is expected to approve the low $128,756 bid to purchase an excavator from Border Equipment.
Also council is slated to consider a staff recommendation to lower the two-year maintenance bond requirement from 110 percent of the construction cost of the subdivision to 50 percent of the construction cost. Such a bond is required to enforce a maintenance guarantee for two years following the signing of the final plat, signifying that the city has assumed ownership of the streets and cart paths.
