New Fiscal Year: Pay Raises For County And School Employees, 50% Budget Increase In Century

October 1, 2013

Fiscal year 2013-2014 begins today as a new budget year for Escambia County and the Town of Century. That mean’s county employees received a pay raise effective today, and Century has upped their bottom line by about 50 percent.

Escambia County: Pay Raises

The Escambia County Commission has a new balanced $364.5 million budget for fiscal year 2013-14.

The new budget includes a three percent cost of living raise for all county employees, including constitutional offices and the Sheriff’s Office. The raises are the first for all county employees since 2007 and will cost about $2.6 million.

The $364,520,055 budget is 2.36 percent more than last fiscal year’s budget of $356,102,136.

The tax millage rates approved are 6.6165 for the County-wide millage rate, .3590 for the Library Municipal Services Taxing Unit (MSTU) and .6850 for the Sheriff’s Law Enforcement Municipal Services Taxing Unit (MSTU).

The total millage rate proposed for Fiscal Year 2013-14 is 0.12 percent below the “Rolled Back Rate” certified by the property appraiser. This represents the percentage decrease in property taxes tentatively adopted by the county commission.

Escambia Schools: No Tax Increase, Teacher Pay Raises

The Escambia County School district has a $612.7 million budget for the new fiscal year.  There will be increase in ad valorem taxes  to meet the budget; the final millage rate was set at 7.557, just under last year’s 7.758.

About $7 million of the budget will go toward teacher and support personnel pay raises. The Escambia Education Association and the district agreed to a possible 4.92 percent raise for teachers, depending on how the teacher scored on their performance evaluation during the 2012-2013 school year. All teachers will receive a minimum salary increase of two percent.

Salaries for educational support personnel will increase by 4.2 percent.  In addition, the parties agreed to a new evaluation system that is evidence-based for educational support personnel.

Century: An Extra $1.6 Million

The Town of Century is in a new budget year that is up about 50 percent over last year.

Century’s 2013-2014 budget is$4,384,791, up about $1.6 million over the last fiscal year. The operating budget increase is due to grant income and associated expenditures of $1,595,000 — including a $650,000 housing grant and a $944,000 drainage project grant for North Century Boulevard.

There will be no net increase in ad valorem taxes  to meet the budget for fiscal year 2013-2014. The recomputed millage rate of .9006 is equal to and does not exceed the rolled-back rate.

NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.

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