Newberry finalizes budget, millage
The Newberry City Commission finalized the city budget and millage rates during a regular meeting on Monday night.
With all appropriated expenditures and reserves, the city's budget includes $54,730,732, including $14,455,349 from the general fund and $14,989,770 in capital improvement funds.
The city has set its millage rate at 5.9 mills, a 9.84% increase over the rollback rate of 5.3721 mills, which would produce about the same amount of money as last year.
The commission also finalized its utility rates, raising residential electric rates by about 1.5%, for an average residential impact of $1.81 per month, and a similar rate adjustment for non-residential rates.
Staff said a lower fuel cost projection from the Florida Municipal Power Agency is expected to bring a lower power cost adjustment to offset the customer rate increase.
"It's difficult... because we're still experiencing increase, and nobody likes increase," Mayor Jordan Marlowe said. "But when other people are going up six, seven, eight percent, and we're going up one and a half percent, I think that's something to celebrate, and I think our residents need to know that's something to celebrate, because our team is doing a whole lot better job navigating these economic waters than folks around us."
Newberry will also raise its wastewater rates by 9.5% in consumption charge and the regular customer charge, with an average residential impact of an additional $6.80 per month.
Water rates will rise by 6% on the consumption and regular customer charges, for an average residential impact of an additional $2.07.
The commission also approved a step increase to its development fee over the next two years, to pay for an anticipated $100 million in projects. The water system development charge effective in January 2025 is to be $2,219.25 per equivalent single-family residential unit and will rise to $3,552 in January 2026.
Equivalent residential units (ERUs) are determined based on service size, with residential tiny homes and small apartments calculated at .75 ERUs, and RV connections or tiny home units less than 500 square feet calculated at .5 ERUs.
Marlowe noted that impact and development fees are different, but difficult to think of separately. He congratulated staff and the commission, saying that it is difficult to increase the rate by 50% over the next two years and that the city is taking steps that most other communities do not take at this point in their development.
"We've all heard our residents talk about shifting and getting the developers to pay more of their fair share," Marlowe told the commission. "You saw at the last budget meeting, we had a bunch of local developers here, and even the local developers understand the struggles that we're having, and they didn't stand up and object, and I thought that speaks volumes."
City Manager Mike New said this year's budget is, in his opinion, the best of the 11 budgets the City Commission has approved during his tenure with Newberry.
New told the commission that developing a large budget begins with understanding the community's wants and priorities, saying staff learns those priorities through listening to the commission, as well as direct interaction with the community.
"I look at our budget and I think of where this community has grown over the last 11 years... and I'm really proud of the work that's being done at Newberry, Florida, and I think our residents should also be proud of the vision that y'all are casting, and the work that's getting done by our staff team," New said.
Marlowe noted that Newberry has won the highest award for financial transparency for four years in a row, which Marlowe said is a sign that people are looking in from the outside and seeing success.
The City Commission also approved a loan application for $5.3 million to construct an elevated storage tank to increase water capacity. Assistant City Manager and Chief Financial Officer Dallas Lee said the city will be able to pay off the debt using money from the increased development fee.
The city also received $1 million in legislative appropriations in June of 2023.
Lee said the design portion is complete, and the city is approved by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's State Revolving Fund to move into the construction phase.
The city will not owe anything on the debt until it begins drawing on it for construction, which it will wait to do until after it has resolved discussions with SRF over its wastewater treatment plant expansion, according to Lee.
New said this is the single largest enhancement the city needs to make on its infrastructure, and that the new water storage should be ready within the next one and a half or two years.
