No tax or fee increases in Lewes' 2017 draft budget

Lewes City Manager Paul Eckrich presented his draft budget for fiscal year 2017 at mayor and city council's first budget workshop Feb. 11. The budget features no tax or fee increases for the year beginning April 1. The city has not raised property taxes since 2011.

The draft balanced budget projects $5.679 million in expenditures and revenues, a $106,000 or 1.9 percent increase over fiscal year 2016.

“This is certainly not anything that’s in concrete. This is a proposal; it is a draft budget,” said Eckrich.

The city’s two largest expenditures are operating expenses ($2.197 million) and the police department ($1.289 million).

There is currently no money set aside in the budget for a full-time planner. Money was set aside during last year’s budget process, but city officials were unable to secure a candidate to fill the position.

Eckrich said the money earmarked in last year’s budget is partially taken up by a his proposal to hire a third full-time employee in the building official’s office. He said the workload on the existing building officials warrants that consideration.

Eckrich said he knows a planner is something with which council is concerned, and there will be further discussion on the topic at later meetings. As it stands, he said, council would need to readjust the budget or dip into reserves to pay for a planner.

In the meantime, Eckrich will calculate how much planning consultant Environmental Resources Management cost the city in the last year.

The city went well over budget on professional consulting fees in the 2015-16 budget, but not all of the money went to ERM. Through Dec. 31, the city spent $81,953 on consultants and had only budgeted $15,000 for the entire fiscal year.

As far as revenues, Eckrich increased his projections for parking-meter and parking-fine income.

The city received more than $442,000 in parking-meter revenue in the 2015 season, well over the budgeted amount of $380,000. To bring it more in line, Eckrich set the bar at $440,000 for fiscal year 2017.

In its first full year of operation, Parkmobile accounted for $58,572, or 13 percent of parking revenue. Overall, 62 percent, more than $277,000, of the parking revenue came from Lewes’ two beach parking lots.

Eckrich is also projecting more revenue from parking violations. After receiving about $133,000 so far this fiscal year, he’s increased the budgeted amount by $20,000 to $130,000 for the next fiscal year.

Other major sources of revenue anticipated for the city of Lewes are property taxes ($2.45 million), transfer taxes ($700,000), gross rental receipts taxes ($425,000), business licenses ($200,000) and building permits ($175,000).

Councilman Fred Beaufait encouraged the city to focus on permit and license compliance, specifically Uber drivers operating within the city.

“I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but if we could make some effort [to enforce],” he said.

Mayor Ted Becker said residents could be made aware of permit and license requirements for Uber drivers and other businesses in the city’s annual letter included with tax bills.

“We rely on voluntary compliance,” Becker said. “I think given that the numbers keep going up, that we’re doing pretty decent. But we have no idea if [compliance] is 90 percent or 89 percent.”

Eckrich said increased revenues and higher compliance in recent years has less to do with people’s honesty and more to do with the city seeking out those in noncompliance, whether unknowingly or intentional.

“There were some people who just didn’t know,” he said. “We’ve gotten most of the low-hanging fruit. Now, we’re drilling down to get more of the [intentionally noncompliant people].”

Council will hold at least four more workshops before voting to adopt the budget. The next meeting will be held at 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, Feb. 17, at city hall. Council will meet with representatives from the building official’s office, the streets department and the police department. Council may also tackle the capital improvements budget.