The city is officially ready to dive headfirst into a new fiscal year following the approval of the 2019-20 fiscal year budget.
Thanks to a successful revenue year and the addition of $3.2 million from the Transportation Referendum, the city had an extra $10 million to add to its budget this year, totaling $86,138,387. Of this, $1,674,883 will go toward the Community Redevelopment Agency and the General Fund will receive $36,951,837.
It was a night of numbers, which City Manger Bill McDaniel succinctly summarized for the gathered crowd. One of the highlights of the evening included the city adding 10.5 employees to its workforce to total 450.5 employees.
Last year, the city introduced a gamut of new projects and many of those are still underway. Because “the very same people that are juggling all the spinning plates of current projects would be the same people that would take on new projects,” McDaniel said, the city is taking a step back from adding too many more to the mix.
“We already have an extensive amount of projects underway,” McDaniel said. “We’re adding a few, but we are conscious of how many we bring to the table at once. The same people have to essentially handle everything the city is doing. If we try to do too much, the quality of the job will lessen because we’re stretching our people too thin.”
The Fire Department is receiving $6,508,841, with $500,000 being allocated toward purchasing a fire pumping apparatus and $400,000 going toward renovating Fire Station 2. Three firefighters are coming onboard to complete staffing for Fire Station 3.
The Plant City Police Department will receive $11,277,052 with an additional investment of $411,000 for 12 police vehicles. Four police officers are finally being added to the department’s staff to provide additional protection throughout the city after years of a near-stagnant staffing pool.
The Recreation and Parks Department will receive $5,839,829 with an additional investment of $157,487 for equipment to “improve efficiency in daily operations of the Parks Maintenance division.” Several exciting park projects, including the addition of a pedestrian bridge at the Rowena Mays Park to connect the two halves of the park, were approved Monday night. The city announced it would also dedicate $100,000 for playground improvements throughout the city and $120,000 to revamp the Washington Baseball Fields behind the soon-to-be completed Sadye Gibbs Martin Community Center.
Continuing its focus on roads, the city is investing $4.7 million to resurface arterial roads and neighborhood streets. Of that, $2.2 million comes from the 1.0 mil property tax and another $2.2 million will be funded with transportation surtax dollars generated.
Of the total budget, approximately $3 million will go toward water and sewer infrastructure improvements to replace waterlines, repair lift stations and fix a variety of generators, pumps, water storage tanks and other items. The city also committed $500,000 toward the Roseland Park stormwater drainage improvement project to reduce flooding throughout that area.
McDaniel said, like every other city he knows of, Plant City is dealing with utilities that are in some cases 100 years old. And utility repairs are not cheap. If something goes wrong, the city could suddenly find itself out hundreds of thousands of dollars. So McDaniel said they plan as strategically as possible on where utility replacements go next, which roads are safe to pave and where their “problem areas” are.
“I’d say we take a holistic view, especially when you add sewer and water to your assessment of the city’s needs as well,” McDaniel said. “We don’t always get it right. The Timberlane collapse was because of paving… but we have a plan and we try our best to stick to it and get as much done as possible.”
Following the unanimous approval from commissioners of the proposed budget, each official took a moment to comment on the city’s “well-balanced budget.” Echoing each other’s praises of McDaniel and the staff’s presentation, they said they were looking forward to seeing what the future holds for the city. They praised themselves on not being in debt and for still having “a strong general fund and a healthy rainy day fund.”
“Plant City has always been ultra conservative,” Commissioner Mike Sparkman said. “We have attempted to run this city like a business. We don’t have the luxury of the federal government of printing more dollars, so we have to watch our dollars conservatively. We even came through the 2007 and 2008 year when our economy crashed and it was pretty tough, and we had some pretty bad and pretty horrible decisions to keep our government afloat and keeping our government, the City of Plant City, effectively serving our people during those times. Now we can do other things to better our community in a business manner, so I’m very proud of that.”
Further breakdown of the numbers
Plant City Economic Development Corporation — $125,000
Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation via PCEDC — $25,000
Greater Plant City Chamber of Commerce — $65,000
Boys and Girls Club of Plant City — $20,000
Railroad Museum Society — $25,000
1914 Building — $50,000
Plant City Main Street — $50,000
Economic Incentive QTI Program — $19,980
Partnership with Arts Council of Plant City — $6,000
Black Heritage Celebration — $2,000
Improvement League of Plant City — $2,000
Christmas Parade — $2,000
The Southern Group Lobbyists — $60,000