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Palm Harbor rec unit's funds dwindling
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Published: May 16, 2009
PALM HARBOR - The tale of the ledger is not pretty for Palm Harbor Parks and Recreation these days.
The property-tax funded community agency must trim its budget by roughly $130,000, or roughly 13 percent, for the coming fiscal year as the economic downturn continues to reduce its revenue stream.
In the last three years, the department has lost a total of about $400,000 in property tax revenue, according to Parks and Recreation Director Rick Burton.
As a result, everything in the way of spending reductions is on the table, Burton said. The options he is contemplating include layoffs, converting full-time positions to part-time jobs and imposing shorter work hours on part-timers, he said.
Burton is hoping to make the spending reductions without shortening the operating hours of Palm Harbor-area parks and recreation facilities and programs. He might, however, have to increase fees and delay replacing equipment, he said.
He will have a better idea of what he must do to balance income and expenditures during the 2010 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, once the Pinellas County Property Appraiser's Office releases its revenue projection for Parks and Recreation, Burton said. He should have that figure in a few weeks.
Parks and Recreation, like the Palm Harbor Library, is part of the Palm Harbor Community Services Agency Municipal Taxing District. The CSA levies a quarter-mill of property tax each for Parks and Recreation and the library each fiscal year.
A mill generates $1 of tax revenue for each $1,000 of assessed taxable property value. As the collapse of the Florida real estate market and the nationwide economic slump drive down property values within the Palm Harbor CSA district, the amount of money that quarter-mill tax levy generates declines as well.
According to Zillow.com, a real estate information Web site, the price of the average house in the Palm Harbor area has declined by roughly $46,000, or slightly more than 25 percent, in the last year. Since January 2006 the price of the average area house has plunged from a peak of around $245,000 to the current $136,666, according to the Web site.
During fiscal 2009 Parks and Recreation is receiving about $858,000 in property tax revenue, with the remainder of its $1.362 million budget made up from user, league and rental fees, according to Burton. The preliminary property tax revenue estimate for fiscal 2010 is $720,000, he said.
In offsetting the continuing revenue reduction, Parks and Recreation has already depleted funds it had placed in reserve to pay for replacement equipment. As a result, if something big breaks, the department would have to borrow the money to replace it, Burton said.
Parks and Recreation is looking for ways to increase revenue by offering programs the public would be willing to pay for and wooing groups to rent space at the department's facilities, he said.
Even as he grapples with a reduction in operating revenue, Burton is not giving up hope of building a gymnasium in four or five years. County government has promised to give Parks and Recreation money from the Penny for Pinellas special sales tax to pay for construction of the gym.
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