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Century Approves Tax Rate, $10.6 Million Budget But Details Shrouded In Mystery

Tuesday night, the Town of Century approved a tax rate and a $10.6 million budget for the next fiscal year. But the details of how they will spend the money remains a bit of a mystery that we can’t report due to unfulfilled public records requests.

Century approves tax rate (but makes mistakes on the details)

The town council approved a resolution establishing a final millage rate for 2024-2025, but made some apparent mistakes on the details.

The resolution read aloud by administrative assistant Mallory Walker before the vote differed from the resolution that was included with the agenda emailed August 30 to town council members and officials, along with local media. The email version stated the millage rate will be “.9204 mills (correct amount), which is greater than the rolled-back rate of 0.2423 mills (incorrect) by 290.66% (incorrect based upon actual amount)”.

According to the resolution read aloud before the affirmative vote, the “operating millage rate is .9204 mills, which is greater than the rolled-back rate of 0.9781 mills by 5.900%.”

While the council voted to approve the resolution read as a property tax increase of 5.9%, that’s not actually the case. In math, 0.9204 is not greater than 0.9781. Under the state’s definition, the town did not raise taxes.

State law establishes a procedure for correcting for mere typographical or inadvertent mistakes (also known as  a“scrivener’s error”). Since the written version of the approved resolution was not provided in the agenda packet nor at the town hall Tuesday night, we can’t verify what it actually stated in writing compared to the verbal statements.

The Mystery: Where’s documentation on how millions will be spent?

Since August 30, NorthEscambia.com has asked for a copy of the complete tentative budget for 2024-2025, which provides details supporting the income and expenditures in a one-page summary that the town sent us (pictured above). For example, Century’s 2023-2024 complete budget contains 14 pages of small print with great detail on how they arrived at the budget, plus a 5-year historical comparison.

When we asked at the meeting, we were told by council members that they had received a copy of the complete budget before the vote. The complete budget was not available to the public at the meeting or on the town’s website.

“Why was there no copy available to the public before tonight? You’re approving numbers. The public has no idea what you’re approving,” NorthEscambia.com Publisher William Reynolds asked during the meeting.

Mayor Luis Gomez, Jr. said NorthEscambia.com had provided everything the council has. But that information was never sent, leaving us and the public without any detailed explanation of how the town plans to spend millions — from water wells to salaries and everything in between. We will further explore the mayor’s comments and our public records requests in an upcoming story.

Century approves $10.6 million budget

The Century Town Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a tentative $10.6 million budget for fiscal year 2024-2025, which starts October 1.

The budget summary states, “The proposed operating budget for this fiscal year is 43%greater than the previous year’s budget due to additional grants.”. Without a complete budget, we can’t tell you what those grant funds are that were included in the budget, or if any of monies were part of the approximately $15.6 million in grants the state terminated, which also included $12.8 million the state pulled from the town “due to financial and fiscal solvency issues the Town is facing“, according to that state agency FloridaCommerce in an email.

The 2024-2025 budget includes an increase of $2,434,114 in both the total budget and the total expenditures of $10,607,009 this fiscal year compared to $8,172,895 last fiscal year. (Mathematically, that’s actually a 29.78% increase, not the $43% stated in writing by the town.)

The town is budgeting for roughly the same amount of income from franchise fees ($170,000) and from licenses, reviews and permits ($10,700), and an increase of $30,937 from “miscellaneous revenue” into the general fund. No explanation of increase is available without the complete budget documentation.

The new budget shows $7,891,884 in income from the “Enterprise Fund” into the general fund, and increase of over three million in additional estimated revenue over last year… In past years, the Enterprise Fund has been comprised of the bills paid by residents for natural gas and sanitation services, along with additional grants. Without a copy of the full budget, we can’t provide complete details.

The town plans to transfer $691 ,503 into their budget from their reserve funds — $554,449 from the “Special Revenue Fund” and $137,054 from the CRA. In October 2018, the council approved a Tax Increment Financing plan for their redevelopment area, allowing the CRA to receive property tax revenues each year in excess of an established base rate. The appraised value of the property within the designated district was “frozen” in 2018, with that amount of tax revenue generated still designated for the town’s general fund, the county and other taxing authorities. The CRA funds are meant to improve a “blighted” area of Century. Without that budget summary, we can’t provide specifics on how or why the reserves — much like a savings account — are being spent next fiscal year.

The town budget shows $2,634,655 will be spent on “general government services”, an increase of over $1.6 million over last year — $1,633,528 to be exact — over last year. Last year, general government services fund was budgeted to be spent on items like day-to-day operations, building maintenance, executive salaries, vehicle expenses, Christmas hams and turkeys, fuel and other employee salaries and expenses like taxes and insurance. Again, we can’t tell you where Century plans to spend an extra $1.6 million without a complete budget.

The town has budgeted $1,671,719 for “Physical Environment”, a decrease of just over $2 million from the enterprise fund — the gas and garbage bills paid by citizens and grants. Since the town did not provide a complete budget, we can’t tell you exactly what this $1.671 million will be spent on. (It’s not obvious how the fund was spent from last year’s budget either. There is no supporting documentation in last year’s budget for a $3.725 million “Physical Environment” fund or any definition.)

This year’s budget shows $5,793,001 in grant expenditures for the enterprise fund. There was no explanation available; that information would be in the complete budget Century would not provide. But we do know the town has received grants for the sewage treatment plant, lift stations and water wells.

Pictured: Tuesday night’s Century Town Council meeting. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.