More Millage Rate Mumbo Jumbo (Language or Ritualistic Activity Intended to Confuse)

This year we again heard more of the annual millage rate talk (alternatively, you may describe it as gibberish, double talk, gobbledygook, jabberwocky) in the annual budget hearing of the City of Coral Gables.  Depending on the direction–up or down–of spending and property values, the Director of Finance always, and I emphasize always, comments on the millage rate as “much lower than many other full-service cities”, “our rate is going done” or  “our rate is just 27 percent of your total taxes,” as if he was saying something substantive.

Why so much talk about the millage rate.

The millage rate is simply the result of dividing the assessed property values by the city budget–nothing more and nothing less.

How do you calculate the millage rate:  (1)  you decide how much money you need in the budget–this is a management and commission decision and it is the only relevant decision;  (2) you divide the amount you need (say, $78 million) by the total assessed property values (say $13 billion) to get the city’s share; and, voila, (3) you get the millage rate (adjust it to a rate per thousand dollars).  Therefore, the millage rate (the tax rate) is determined by the city budget request alone–everything else is out of the control of Coral Gables.

The City of Coral Gables Commissioners and Managers never discuss the budget in great detail during the Budget Hearings.  The commissioners’ questions, directed at management, are usually quite restrained.  There has been no real deep questioning about the number of employees and benefits, present or future capital spending, maintenance costs, vehicle costs, overtime, etc. and different ways of reducing spending and taxes significantly.  The taxpayers is not well represented in the process.

I quote from my last year’s post.

The city fathers do us no favor by having a lower or higher millage rate.  They do us a favor by better managing the city’s budget–that is [what] counts.

Boca has a Long-Range Financial Plan

Why can’t Coral Gables, City Beautiful, with its top-notch city manager, well-educated citizenry, with a world class university in our midst, prepare a long-range financial plan like that of Boca Raton.  I cannot judge the details of the plan, but it seems like a wonderful instrument to incorporate citizen participation and understanding of Coral Gables’ many financial issues.  It would provide a forum for an open and active review of the future of the city, rather than the annual hit-or-miss treatment of taxes, fees and spending.

The Long-Range Financial Plan of the City of Boca Raton is described as follows:

This Plan provides us with an opportunity to evaluate current policies and practices in order to  implement proactive strategies before critical fiscal strains impact the budget. The best informed, fiscally sensitive decisions will be those deliberated with their longer-term implications in mind. To that end, we annually update the Plan for the City Council.

We look forward to the day that the city of Coral Gables is capable of formulating an in depth long-range financial plan for plain view of all citizens.  Read some of the plan and you will be amazed that Boca Raton was sitting on $50 million in reserves at one time and has $10 million in hurricane response reserves!