Winter Springs passes budget, keeps tax rate frozen 

Winter Springs passed its 2023-2024 budget unanimously Monday, as well as keeping its tax rate flat. The city’s $72.7 million budget is $14 million more compared to the year before, an increase driven by rising property values. The budget sailed through Monday’s City Commission meeting unchanged from that which was proposed at a budget meeting on July 10. 

Some of the city’s budget this year contains echoes of the economic woes dealt to the city in 2022 during hurricane season. 

“We certainly had a challenging 2022 with one of the largest natural disasters the area has ever endured,” Winter Springs Interim City Manager Phil Hursh said on Sept. 11. “In the wake of Hurricane Ian, a truly historic event, the city was left with damaged water and sewer lines, submerged sanitary sewer lift stations, significant damage to roads as the saturated base materials collapsed, and damaged bridges and culverts from creeks swollen from heavy volumes and flows never seen before … With hard work and dedication from city staff and our consultants, we were able to rebuild this city in just six months.” 

Some of that damage and rebuilding that took place in 2022 has set the stage for budget items built into this budget, which goes into effect at the beginning of October. 

The city is replacing two wastewater treatment facilities, plus associated equipment and infrastructure, with an estimated cost of $100,000,000. The city’s solid waste rates of $18.10 per month, unchanged since 2006, were a bragging point in July, but in a solid waste rate study presented to the City Commission Aug. 14 it was determined the city will likely need to significantly increase rates in the coming years. That won’t happen in this budget. 

But a big change in the budget is a 41% increase in capital expenditures, including the wastewater rebuild and other infrastructure improvements, including about $750,000 for police vehicles and $100,000 for the design and permitting phase of a scenic boardwalk along the shore of Lake Jesup. 

The tax, or “millage” rate, remains flat at 2.41 mills or about $2.41 per $1,000 of taxable value on property, but thanks to increases in property value and also new construction of about $12.9 million it adds up to an estimated $682,285 in additional tax revenue for the city compared to last year.  

But the city’s overall budget increases had at least one commissioner in July questioning how the city was making up the difference. 

“We’ve got a budget that’s going up almost 25%, we have a balanced budget, yet our millage is staying the same. In layman’s terms, how are we able to increase our budget 25%?” Deputy Mayor Rob Elliott asked. 

Interim Finance Director Donna Bruno said the city had previously been under-budgeting compared to additional tax revenues, and also received federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, enacted in 2021 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, plus federal funds and state revolving loan funds coming into the city. 

On Sept. 11, when the city passed the unchanged budget on first reading, Commissioner Victoria Colangelo took Bruno by surprise, causing her to take a mid-meeting trip to her office to retrieve in-depth budget documents. 

“I wasn’t expecting questions, since it was the same budget that was presented back in July,” Bruno said.

At one point, after being told how a certain one-time expenditure affected the city’s budget reserves, Colangelo asked if anybody else understood, and was answered with a chorus of “yes” by commissioners and staff. 

The city is still meeting its target of keeping 25% of revenues in reserve, Bruno said Monday, and that’s despite the reserves decreasing while the city undergoes capital improvements, such as sewer lift pump stations, Hursh said. 

“Revenues are performing pretty close to target,” Hursh said. 

“You’ll have to look at the budget in totality; you can’t just look at a page or a snippet,” Bruno said. 

The budget, including line items for expenses and revenue, is available here.