Toccoa Proposing No Tax or Utility Rate Hikes in FY 2016 Budget

The city of Toccoa is working on getting its proposed Fiscal Year 2016 budget ready for a first public hearing later this month.

Toccoa City Commissioners met with City Manager Billy Morse and department heads one day last week for an all-day budget work session at Toccoa City Hall.

Morse said the city is looking at a proposed budget of about $36 million at this point.

“There will be no property tax rate increase,” said Morse. “There will be no increases for any utility rates or user fees. We are growing our rainy day fund, our reserve funds, by $800,000 this year. I think that is a great thing.”

Morse did say that the approximately $36 million budget figure is higher than the current fiscal year’s budget.

However, Morse said that increase is accounted for in SPLOST and certain special revenue funds.

“It is mainly due for SPLOST projects and the Davidson Creek dredging project,” said Morse. “Those are the two major drivers of the reason that went up. We have funding in place for those, so we feel good about that.”

Morse explained that the city’s operating fund budgets are actually down from the current fiscal year.

“Operating funds of the city of Toccoa, which are the general fund, the water fund, and those sorts of things … shows a decrease of almost two percent,” said Morse.

According to Morse, the current proposed budget does include a three percent salary increase for all departments in the city.

Also, Morse said the current proposed budget includes three new full-time positions, two of which are for the city-owned Pines golf course.

Morse said the golf course is the major new expenditure for next year’s proposed budget when compared to this current year.

Meanwhile on the revenue side, Morse said the city is seeing an increase in Local Option Sales Tax revenue that is expected to continue.

“I think that is a good sign to us,” said Morse. “That is a sign there is an upturn in the economy. That is certainly encouraging.”

Elsewhere, Morse said the city is expected to see a decrease in both total revenue from natural gas sales and total expenditures from natural gas purchases because of a decline in the price of natural gas.

Morse said, however, he does not expect that to affect the budget in a significant way.

“What we operate on in the Gas Department we call a margin and that margin is going to be a little bit less for us next year than it is for this year, but not substantially,” said Morse. “We do not have any concerns there.”

Overall, Morse said he feels the budget work session last week went well and he says he feels good about the proposed budget and how it is coming together.

“We are just making a lot of improvements to our facilities, to our parks,” said Morse. “I just think we are doing a lot of good things, build some cash reserves, no rate increases, no property tax increases. Overall, I think we feel really good and positive about the budget we are looking at.”

The Toccoa City Commission is expected to hold a first public hearing on the budget next Monday, April 27, at the city’s commission’s 5 p.m. meeting at Toccoa City Hall.