Fort Pierce commission narrows budget options: keep millage, trim new hires, set employee increases

The Fort Pierce City Commission on Thursday reviewed seven budget scenarios and gave staff direction to hold the citys millage at the current 6.9 rate while seeking a path to fund pay increases and capital needs without raising property taxes.

Commissioners and staff spent more than two hours weighing options that ranged from a combination of across-the-board raises and larger, targeted increases for police to deeper cuts in capital and new positions. Finance staff presented seven scenarios showing how various combinations of pay adjustments, 3% operating reductions and capital cuts would affect the general fund and the millage needed to balance the budget.

The commissions working consensus was to ask staff to draft the budget reflecting: 5% increases for nonbargaining employees, 5% for bargaining employees, and a police package of step plus 6 (the workshop language: "step plus 6"). Commissioners also directed staff to reduce the planned complement of new hires and to fund a limited subset of positions: a deputy city manager and a city engineer, plus two position requests in the police department that had been recommended by a third-party study. Finance staff estimated those retained hires would reduce the new-positions cost by about $472,000 compared with the full original request.

Why it matters: Commissioners repeatedly emphasized the citys limited ability to…