Swim safe this summer - City of Coral Springs

Proposed 2011 financial strategy maintains service levels
Despite persistent economic challenges,
City staff will honor their commitment to the
community by maintaining service levels and
ensuring the City’s long-term financial stability.
Despite the City’s long history of fiscal discipline
and proactive planning, the economic
recession proved to be more severe than predicted.
To combat it, the City took additional
action quickly and decisively when preparing
the Fiscal Year 2010 Business Plan. The City
instituted a three-pronged financial strategy
that included a voluntary wage freeze for union
and non-union employees; a plan to judiciously
use $14 million of surplus reserves over
a four-year period; and as a last resort, raised
the property tax rate for FY ’10 back to where
it stood in FY’08, still the lowest in the region
for larger, full-service cities. The result is that
the City will end the current fiscal year within
budget, while living up to the promises made
through the Business Plan.
For FY ’11, the City will continue the threepronged
strategy. Additional expenditure cuts
will be made, including a continuation of the
wage freeze for Senior Management. Total
reserves used to supplant lost revenues over
the next four years will increase by $3 million,
including the use of $4.8 million for FY ’11 and,
as a measure of last resort, the strategy includes
adoption of the tax rate that enables the City to
receive nearly the same property tax revenue in
FY ’11 as received in FY ’10 (the rolled-back rate).
This will allow the City to maintain service levels
to our residents and businesses moving forward.
Even with the adoption of the rolled-back rate, the bottom
line is that the City is collecting less tax revenue from our
property owners in 2011 than in 2010 ($250,000 less). The
new tax rate is still one of the lowest operating millage rates
among larger, full-service municipalities in the region, and
the debt service tax rate will remain unchanged.
While the City continues to cut expenses and find oper-
• Police emergency response times remain at an average of five
minutes, and we have preserved non-emergency services such as
School Resource Officers in our schools and crossing guards for our
school children.
• Fire/EMS response times remain at an average of eight minutes or
less 90% of the time, and we have maintained full staffing in our
five fire stations, ensuring continued excellent emergency service.
Prevention measures such as fire inspections are also preserved.
• All City parks will be fully operational during normal hours and in
excellent condition.
Recent actions save us $10.3 million annually
Recent actions save us $14 million annually
Action
Reduced staffing by 34 positions
Instituted a wage freeze for all employees during FY
2010 and for senior staff in FY 2011
How is the City preserving service levels?
Annual
Savings
$2.25M
$2.1M
Reduced Health Plan expenses $560k
Reduced operating expenses such as overtime,
supplies, printing, training, and travel
Cumulative annual savings from refunding
and equity financing initiatives
$488k
$4.9M
These savings have allowed the City to avoid a 21% increase over the
recommended millage rate change while still providing the same level of service.
20.0
16.0
12.0
8.0
4.0
0.0
Ft. Lauderdale
13.5
Full-Time Employees
Per 1,000 Population
Full-time employees per 1,000 residents
Sunrise
10.7
Hollywood
9.9 9.4
Plantation
Deerfield Beach
7.7 7.4
Davie
7.3 7.1
ating efficiencies, an additional $3.37 million would have to
be cut to maintain the current tax rate. This would mean
personnel layoffs, service level cuts and digging deeper into
reserves in a way that is not financially sustainable.
“We recently received the good news that for the second
time, Money magazine ranked Coral Springs the number-one
city in Florida to live. Simply put, our Business Plan focuses
on funding the reasons why our community was able to
achieve this ranking,” City Manager Michael S. Levinson said.
• All streets, medians and rights-of-way will continue to be wellmaintained
so as to preserve the aesthetics of our community.
• All sports leagues, learn-to-swim programs and other recreational
offerings will proceed as usual.
• We will continue our disciplined financial management by refunding
and restructuring our debt to keep ongoing debt payments low. In fact,
the City’s per-capita debt is one of the lowest of all major cities in Florida.
Miramar
CoralSprings.org/budget
Pompano Beach
Fiscal Year 2010
Pembroke Pines
6.2
Coral Springs
5.9
features
Watch CityTV 25 Summer 2010 • Coral Springs • 5