Milton council gets first look at 2024 budget

For the second year in a row, residents of Milton could see a property tax increase as part of the town’s fiscal year 2024 budget. The town has already increased taxes three times since 2015. 

As part of the first draft of the $3.5 million budget, presented by Town Manager Kristy Rogers to council July 24, property taxes would go from $0.295 per $100 of assessed value to $0.324 per $100 of assessed value, a 9% increase. This comes on the heels of a 17% increase in the fiscal year 2023 budget. The town previously increased property taxes in fiscal years 2015 and 2021, with taxes going up by 11% in 2015 and by 5% in 2021.

Mayor John Collier said he expects council to take heat over the proposed tax increase, but for years, he said, the town did not address rising costs of services with smaller, more incremental increases, which the town is now paying for. Both Collier and Rogers said the increase is mainly to keep services at the level residents have grown accustomed to. Collier added that unlike the beach towns, Milton does not have parking meter revenue it can tap into every year, with most of the town’s revenue coming via property taxes and real estate transfer taxes.

“The City of Rehoboth generates in parking revenue almost twice our annual budget. We do not have the same resources,” he said. 

The town has a separate budget for the water department, with revenue there restricted to water infrastructure-related projects. 

The budget is balanced with a $3,000 surplus, but 59% of the town’s expenses go toward paying employees; Rogers said the $1.67 million that would be raised through the property tax increase is less than the budget of the police department. The town’s liability insurance is estimated to go up 20%, and employee health insurance is estimated to go up 10%. 

Besides the proposed property tax increase, fee increases in the budget include raising the police staffing fee; in other words, if a person or entity requests or requires a Milton police officer on site to staff an event. That fee is proposed to rise from $50 to $65. Also, trash collection is slated to go from $63.50 per quarter to $70 per quarter. Finally, Rogers said, the budget calls for instituting a $100 fee for emergency public works call-ins. She said the town is paying for town staff to respond to those calls, and some of that money should be recouped.

Rogers said she still had to pull from the town’s reserve funds and utilize realty transfer tax revenue to ensure the budget is balanced and have a modest capital improvement program. 

The capital improvement projects eyed for this year include street resurfacing and sidewalk repair, fixing the roofing and siding at town hall, replacing the deck boards at Governor’s Walk and Magnolia Street, purchasing two police patrol vehicles, repairs to the Memorial Park gazebo and starting a new brick paver program there, and the purchase of a utility body truck. Most of the projects are being funded through reserve funds. 

The town supplemented its own funding with grant funding for the street and sidewalk projects, and the police cars. In addition, the town will begin work this fiscal year on a new well and treatment facility on land the town owns on Federal Street next to the Rails to Trails. That project was funded by federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act. 

All told, capital projects comprise 9% of the town’s budget. 

Rogers also presented council with a series of public policy decisions related to the budget that council will have to make. These include reviewing the programs and fees related to parks and recreation, employee benefits, the affordability and financing of new facilities, whether to institute incremental tax increases so as not to do future large increases, affordability and financing of water system improvements, and projects to be funded using proceeds from the Granary at Draper Farm special development district funds. 

Council will have its first major discussion on the budget at its Monday, Aug. 7 meeting. Two weeks after that, Monday, Aug. 21, council will hold a public hearing. Between those meetings, the finance committee will conduct its own review of the budget. Rogers has set a target date of Monday, Sept. 11, for council to vote on the budget, but council technically has until Friday, Sept. 29 to have the budget in place before the fiscal year begins Sunday, Oct. 1.