City Manager J.C. Jimenez was lauded at Monday’s City Council Workshop Meeting for proposing a budget that had a wide range of budget cuts across all the departments in order to keep the budget within the existing millage rate. In other words, a tighter budget that would prevent tax increases.
Among the many, many budget cuts were the removal of funding for the River Cities Festival, CMI (the organization running the Curtiss Mansion), and the Easter Egg drop residential delivery. The Festival and the Curtiss Mansion operations have been able to make a profit reducing the necessity to have the operations subsidized by tax dollars.
While the millage rate has yet to be finalized, the budget proposed by the Miami Springs City Manager, JC Jimenez, allows the City Council to have the option of keeping the millage rate as is instead of raising the taxes on residents.
As we recently reported, the City Council had set a budget millage rate cap of 7.4100. That rate would be 7% higher than the current millage rate of 6.9100. The millage rate cap is the highest the rate can go, but the council has the options to adopt a rate that is lower than 7.4100.
The good news is that the balanced budget proposed by JC Jimenez will provide the City Council the option to keep the millage rate at 6.9100. It’s not final yet, but there seemed to be no appetite by the council members to increase the millage rate.
As indicated at Monday’s City Council meeting, the inflation that has hit us all has also been impacting the City of Miami Springs. Costs have gone up all around. So balancing the budget at the current millage rate required a lot of belt tightening and difficult cuts across all city departments.
We want to thank City Manager J.C. Jimenez for the hard work and effort to tighten budgets and present the City Council with a balanced budget that doesn’t raise taxes. Nicely done!
