OCEAN CITY – The Mayor and City Council will sit down to take another look at the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year prior to first reading to determine if there are any other suggested cuts to minimize the proposed tax rate of being a penny over constant yield.
At the conclusion of Tuesday’s Mayor and City Council work session, Councilman Joe Mitrecic requested additional time for the council to review the proposed Fiscal Year 2015 Budget prior to its first reading on May 5.
“I would request the council schedule the next work session on the [April] 29th another look at the budget with Mr. Recor [City Manager] and the budget manager, possibly bringing some other cost savings measures forward that we can look at,” Mitrecic said. “We are still a penny over the constant yield right now, and I think that some of that in speaking with the budget manager can be reduced. Do I think we can take away the full penny? I don’t know if that is possible, but I do believe there is some savings that can be found in the budget at the staff level to bring forward as a recommendation to council to take a look at before first reading. The budget is not done until second reading.”
As the budget stands, the Mayor and Council will increase real property taxes. For the tax year beginning July 1, 2015, the estimated real property assessable base will increase by .330 percent, or from $8,489,127,273 to $8,517,156,880.
If the Town of Ocean City maintains the current tax rate of $.4720 per $100 of assessment, real property tax revenues will increase by .330% resulting in $132,300 of new real property tax revenues. In order to fully offset the effect of increasing assessments, the real property tax rate should be reduced to $.4704, the constant yield tax rate.
The Town of Ocean City is considering not reducing its real property tax rate enough to fully offset increasing assessments. The town proposes to adopt a real property tax rate of $.4804 per $100 of assessment. This tax rate is 2.1 percent higher than the constant yield tax rate and will generate $851,716 in additional property tax revenues.
The council was in consensus for another look over the budget prior to first reading on May 5.