The past six months have been very busy for staff, Council and me. Standing up a new department, drafting policies and approving how to fund the services we provide are the vital operations of what we do for our community of Tucker. We adjusted our normal meeting schedule from one business meeting and one work session a month to two business meetings a month so that we had time and opportunity to consider and weigh everything properly.
Two big decisions were made in June: approval of the budget for Fiscal Year 2024 and the City’s millage rate. This month marks the end of seven years of City operations, and during that time we have worked hard to maintain a balanced and fiscally conservative budget. Through our efforts, we have grown our reserves and I can proudly say that we are secure and stable. And with our levelheaded decision making we have earned the trust of you, our constituents, to be responsible fiduciary stewards. This was made clear when we went to the polls and approved not only to assume management of a Public Works Department but also to raise the millage rate cap that the Council and I can approve from 1 mill to 3 mills.
During the months leading up to the referendum last November, we did our best to educate and explain what our vision of the new department and millage rate would be. We sent out citywide mailers, had a dedicated and in depth webpage (that is still up), and hosted three in-person meetings that were recorded and shared on our social media platforms. We made predictions and estimates, and we plan on sticking to our promises. To that end, our millage rate has increased 191%. It looks and sounds like a lot, but it is actually less than we predicted last fall.
We first collected a City tax in 2018 when we started managing Parks and Recreation. Our initial millage rate was 0.9 mills, and we maintained that rate for three years. Due to an increase in the tax digest--that means property values inside the City went up--we were able to rollback our millage rate to .84 last year. Again, this year brought another increase in our tax digest, and we have approved a rollback from last year’s .84 to .784. This millage is part of how we fund maintenance and improvements in our parks and various programs like our youth sports leagues.
The additional 1.5 mills that we approved will go directly to our roads here in the City. Since last fall we have always stated that we would increase our rates in order to provide better service than what we have been used to. You will find that in response to our addition, the rate with DeKalb County will go down. In addition to Roads and Maintenance we have also started providing Stormwater services. This is an annual fee per household and will be billed at $72 per year.
We are so proud of the hard work our staff and City Management have put into standing up this department and setting a fair and balanced budget. You can read more about Public Works and our approved budget later in this issue and, of course, on our website.
