June 6, 2012
To:
Mayor and Members of City Council
From:
Milton Dohoney Jr., City Manager
Subject:
RESOLUTION – Adopting the Annual Tentative Tax Budget for 2013
Submitted herewith is a resolution captioned as follows: ADOPTING the Annual Budget for Current Operating Expenses of the City of Cincinnati for the year 2013 and submitting the same to the County Auditor.
Approval of the Resolution and Tax Budget will allow the City of Cincinnati to meet the technical requirements of state law under which the City must: a) prepare an annual operating budget; and b) submit a City Council-approved budget to the County Auditor no later than July 20 preceding the fiscal year to which it applies. This Tax Budget shows General Fund revenues of approximately $351.3 million and General Fund expenditures of $386.2 million less $1.9 million in expenditure savings resulting in a gap of $33.0 million excluding any use of carryover balance. Please note that approval by the City Council of these items to meet the state’s technical requirements does not set the final 2013 budget. The final budget will be approved by the City Council later in the year. The Resolution approval is necessary to allow the County to set the millage based on the revenue estimate for the property tax. The 2013 Tax Budget contains all of the required information for all appropriated funds, including the General Fund. As required by law, a public hearing is scheduled for June 18, 2012 at 9:30 a.m. in the Budget and Finance Committee. The Tax Budget must be adopted by Friday, June 29, 2012 because of the City Council’s summer schedule. The Tax Budget includes estimated property tax revenue for 2013. Once the Tax Budget is passed, the County will set the millage for 2013 based on the estimated property valuation. Therefore, this is the only opportunity for City Council to set the property tax revenue estimate for 2013. The estimated operating property tax revenue is based upon the millage being set at 6.1 mills. This results in property tax revenue of an estimated $31.5 million. The increase in millage will result in additional revenue of $7.8 million. When calculated on a $100,000 residential property, the millage rate of 6.1 mills would increase the property tax by $46 when compared to the 2012 millage rate. This tax budget will also set the mills to be generated for the payment of debt service. This millage is estimated to increase from 5.9 mills to 6.25 mills in 2013. The 6.25 mills breaks down as follows, 6.1 mills to cover outstanding debt and planned General Capital debt with an additional .15 mills to cover debt on $27.9 million in one-time capital projects to be added to the 2013 General Capital program. An owner of a $100,000 residential property will see an increase of $10 ($6 to cover current capital spending,
$4 for the one time increase in capital spending) for the amount for the bond retirement component. In 2014, .58 mills will be needed to cover the one time Capital expenditures. We recommend approval of the attached Resolution and Tentative Tax Budget.
c: Reginald Zeno, Finance Director Attachments