Less than a month remains until the Apopka City Budgeting cycle of 2023-2024 is set to begin. But as residents await the start of the new fiscal year, the city commissioners and finance director have provided an inside look at their priorities and new project announcements to expect during this year's workshops.
Apopka Finance Director Blanche Sherman said that her main goal during this year's budgeting cycle is to ensure less reliance on reserve money and less impact on citizens from a millage rate standpoint.
"We are dealing with a lot of price increases due to the supply chain demand, and a lot of our infrastructure and capital projects will probably increase as a result of that," Sherman said. "We are actually already running into some of that with our recent projects, so we need to make sure we are good stewards of the public funds and not padding the budget."
While Sherman still awaits each department's finalized budget request, she explained that personnel services would be the priority in the budget. These include contractual services, professional services, training and travel, dues and memberships, printing services, and operating supplies. After that, they will review the needed capital improvements, such as equipment and machinery, vehicle replacements, and fuel costs for operational departments.
She also shared that a major project to expect during the upcoming budget meetings is a brand-new public safety facility that will house the police and fire department.
"That's going to be a major undertaking, but we are in the midst of trying to get the scope of work prepared right now so we can go out and solicit for that and start on the design," Sherman said.
Sherman was asked if there were any plans to potentially set aside funds to annex South Apopka into the City of Apopka. She said that, as of yet, there are no plans to set aside a budget. However, she mentioned they are looking into an estimated cost and its potential impact on the millage rate.
The current millage rate for Apopka City residents is 4.18 and is forecasted to have a.13 rate increase if an annexation to South Apopka was to occur.
The Apopka City Commissioners were able to share their priorities and items they will be pushing for during this year's budget cycle.
Commissioner Kyle Becker said the first item on his budget list is ensuring the city staff is adequately funded to care for Apopka's growing population.
According to the U.S Census Bureau, the lasted population estimate of Apopka City is 57,017, which marks a 3.9 percent increase since 2020 with a previous population of 54,889.
"The city of Apopka is growing very quickly, and with that comes the need for proper staffing," said Becker. "You can't service a community of 60 thousand with a workforce that's better suited to serve a population of 25 thousand, so the very first question that I'm always asking myself is, are we properly staffed to meet the needs of our residents?"
The second item on Commissioner Becker's list is street maintenance. He explained that a road wave net worth assessment was conducted, and the results suggested an estimated budget between $1 million and $2 million per year based on the current conditions of the roads.
Becker emphasized that budgeting for consistent street maintenance is a better financial investment than waiting to take action once road conditions fall below-grade levels. He said the repairs would be more expensive as the damages became more severe.
"Making sure that is properly funded is going to be critical because we have streets that are starting to be compromised in terms of the quality falling apart and potholes, so every dollar we can proactively spend there now is less money we would have to spend on repair down the road," Becker said.
Becker also shared that there are unique projects that he will be pushing for during this budget cycle. These include expanding ball fields across the city, maintaining Bay Ridge cemetery, and Camp Wewa improvements.
He highlighted that Camp Wewa requires enhancements to be fully ADA-compliant and safety improvements to make it a top-tier attraction for people.
"Everything that we can do to make that camp a premier destination for people will create stream revenues to offset that expense," Becker said. "When you can create interesting revenues for the city, it mitigates the need to put that burden via tax on our current residents."
Becker stated that his hopes for this year's budget cycle process are for department directors to have complete confidence in fighting for their desired budget and for council members to have the room to discuss things they would also like to see in the budget as well.
"What I hate happening is stuff being settled at the staff level where they say, 'We don't think the council will approve this, so we are not going to present it,'" Becker said. "I would prefer that they oversubscribe in terms of what they're comfortable with and then let the City Council reel it back into what we are comfortable with for our city."
Commissioner Nick Nesta shared that his main desire is to ensure the City is fiscally sound to prevent citizens from being over-taxed.
"I want to make sure that any money we have, whether it is cash or investments, is not only safe to tap into and to reinvest but also that we are making the highest possible interest on returns that we possibly can on those funds," Nesta said. "As long as we are making money on the money that we have, we don't have to continue to increase taxes, and that is my goal. I don't want to have to increase taxes arbitrarily if we can invest correctly."
Along with Commissioner Becker, another priority item on Nesta's list is ensuring each department is appropriately staffed to guarantee the City is a "fully functioning machine," he said.
"We seem to be understaffed in many departments, fire, police, building, public works, everywhere," Nesta said. "We need to make sure that nobody is being overworked, that nobody is working four different jobs, that they can stay in their lane and do exactly what they need to do and do it to the best of their ability."
Nesta was asked if there are plans to set aside funds during this year's budgeting cycle to combat homelessness in Apopka City. To do that, he said the following questions must be considered first: Is it mental health needs? Is it housing needs? Is it just food needs? Do we need better job training to put them on their feet?
"We need to really identify what the needs are before we can allocate funds to it, and until we do a truly needs assessment, it doesn't make sense to throw funds at it arbitrarily," Nesta said.
He also shared his thoughts on the current rates of homelessness in the city, and while some believe these have been increasing, Nesta said there hadn't been any massive increases.
"People feel our homeless population is increasing in such a huge way recently, and what's really happening is that through our huge increase in developments, the homeless that were living in certain plots of lands have been driving out of those private lands, and we are starting to see more of them in a highly concentrated area," Nesta said. "It's not that there are more. Is just that they've been pushed off where their camps were and things like that."
Nesta also shared that during last year's budget hearing, he felt as if a budget list was already made and that some requests came as a surprise.
"Is almost as if the decision is already been made, and we're just there to ask some general questions and keep moving forward," Nesta said.
To prevent this from happening again, Nesta suggested that commissioners should speak individually to each department to share their expectations. However, he said it's up to each commissioner to do it how they feel is best.
Commissioner Diane Velazquez said this year she wants a budget that can properly care for the community without feeling that they're barely keeping their heads above water.
"I just want to see a budget that will be able to serve our growing community because we keep touting how we have the lowest millage rate yet were exploiting everywhere around. I mean, we're just expanding our community with new developments and residents, so can we keep up with that?" Velazquez said.
Commissioner Velazquez shared that she also wants to ensure the City has a competitive salary so that employees feel valued and to prevent a constant change of staff members.
"One of the things I realize is going on with other cities is they are becoming very competitive with their salaries, and so when you're not competitive with your salaries, you have a constant transition of employees, and that's not good for any city," Velazquez said.
Mayor Bryan Nelson and Commissioner Alexander Smith were contacted to share their priorities for this year's budget cycle but did not reply at the time of publication.
For residents to be involved during the budgeting cycle, Sherman said they should attend the public hearings during the workshops. The fiscal year 2023-2024 budget workshops are set to begin on July 24th through July 26th and will take place at City Hall at 5 p.m.
The July 24th budget workshop will discuss Community Development, Economic Development, Parks & Recreation, and Administration. The July 25th workshop will discuss Information Technology and Public Safety. The July 26th workshop will discuss Public Services.
