I am sorry that I did not Blog yesterday. I was pretty busy most of the day and just did not get to it. Today I will share with you a letter that I wrote to the Bradenton Herald. I guess they will print, I'm not sure. We have been having some comments and emails from people who think we may be missing the boat. This is all based on the comments that our Police Chief stated he wants more cops regardless of cost. So here is my explanation dealing with how I think.
Before reading this I wish you a Blessed day and want to share today's verse with you.
“What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.”- 2 Timothy 1:13-14 
I would like to respond to the budget dilemma that exists in the City Of Bradenton. I do not want to try and dazzle anyone with numbers or graphs with predetermined ratios. Everyone knows the budget restraints that every government is struggling with today. And every informed tax payer knows and understands why we are this situation.
First let me say that each department and department heads have the same problem. Work load has increased; staffing has decreased with exceptions (Fire & Police). With all that said it must be understood that providing the service each department does comes with a price tag. That price tag has increased in an insurmountable amount. Just look around you and consider what you are paying for things you buy each day. If you could compare them with prices you paid 5 years ago comprehension sets in the mind set.
Taxes: The City Of Bradenton collects about $20 million in property tax revenue. That is the amount of money that the City Council has direct control of. How: We can raise or lower the tax to compensate for cost. The budget for the City of Bradenton is going to be $100 million or more. So how do we fund the Budget with only $20 million received in taxes?
Departments Revenue:
Water, Sewer and Sanitation:
These departments are classified as enterprise funds. We hope each year that the service is paid for by the amount we charge the user. Sometimes it falls short and we have to supplement it out of property taxes.
Building, Planning, Code enforcement, ITE, Financial, Human Resource, Fire and Police Departments:
The funding for all of these departments comes from the collection of property taxes.
City owned Golf Course:
Funds come from user fees (enterprise fund)
So, as you can see that the $20 million dollars that we collect from property tax does not come close to paying the bill. The Fire and Police budget alone is $20 million dollars. The balance of the funding comes from sources that we cannot and do not control. State sales tax, cigarette tax, gas tax, Federal Grants and etc.
One of the largest price tags we have is that we provide a great Health Plan and great pension plan for all employees. The cost of these two items is a tremendous amount of money. For example; we had to put $ 1.3 million into the Fire and Police pensions alone this year. This amount is above our normal contribution. The cause is that the investment of their funds in the stock market was hurt.
Taxes:
I received the message from this community a number of years ago. There was a move to increase the sales tax for Manatee County which all the cities would have reaped great benefits from. The burden for the tax would have been shared by visitors who use all our services also. But the people spoke loudly, No Tax Increase!
There are so many more things that we deal with that it would take much more time to explain. I just hope that some of this information will help the tax payer understand what we are dealing with. There is not an easy solution to all the problems that we are facing and will face in the future.
As a point of interest about the City of Sarasota. Yes they do have a bigger tax base then Bradenton. I remember that when the city was approving high Rises that we were told that “we do not want to be like Sarasota”! Also keep in mind that for their taxes paid they do not pay for a Fire Department. The cost was too high and they turned it over to the county which has a special tax for the fire department. So taxpayers in Sarasota pay an additional tax up and above their city tax for fire service.
Gene Gallo
Ward 1 Councilman
Guess where I will be today with at least 90 thousand others? Can't wait until kickoff time which will start the year. Pat and I went to the Manatee - Bayshore game last night. Manatee won big, 45 - 0, seems as though they may have what it takes this year. It was a fun family thing to do as Darenda, Tyler, Luke and Tyler's buddy Michael Galvano were also with us.
