Windermere starts budget process for next fiscal year

Windermere Town Council is getting a head start on budgeting for Fiscal Year 2019-20. 

On Tuesday, July 23, the council gathered for a workshop to discuss the town’s funds for the upcoming fiscal year.

At the meeting, council members started by assessing the work Town Manager Robert Smith already had done to balance the budget, which was approved tentatively at just over $6.2 million.

Smith said this year the focus of the budget has been preparing financially for the new facilities and living up to last year’s promises made by the council when it raised the town’s millage rate.

“(This means) putting more money into sidewalks, multimodal, the water design, putting money back into parks and recreation, all while making sure they maintained the amount of money that we put in every year,” Smith said. 

In March, the town voted in a referendum to take on a loan of $5.2 million to pay for the new facilities for public works, administration and the police department. This fiscal year, the budget includes the payment of $300,000 toward that debt. The town is currently still in the design phase of the project but hopes to break ground on the one-story complex in the spring of 2020. 

The council also voted to set a proposed millage rate at the recommended rate of 3.74 for the upcoming year.

According to Smith, one of the biggest challenges with balancing a budget, especially a small one, is affording healthcare for the town’s employees. The budget needs to accommodate the market’s rising costs and still provide quality care. 

“What you don’t want is to become a tax burden on the general public to subsidize that healthcare,” Smith said. “So we try to find that balance.” 

One of the money-saving strategies the town uses is consolidating services and subcontracting services out to other municipalities and businesses. A few examples include contracting out studies for civil engineering like the town has done in the past with Wade Trim.

“You have one pot of money and all these things and all these prices that are increasing, so (it’s) just finding innovative ways to get these things done without having to increase that rate,” Smith said. 

The city also utilizes an agreement with the city of Ocoee to use its fire rescue services, as opposed to developing its own or paying Orange County, saving the town approximately $400,000 a year. 

The council approved the proposed balance budget at its workshop. The next step is to have the budget adoption hearings, which are open to the public. These hearings are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 11, and 6 p.m., Monday, Sept. 23 at Town Hall. 

“It’s always difficult to maintain the financial viability of the town while maintaining the level of service (and) the quality of life of the residents without increasing the millage rate or adding additional associates,” Smith said.