City passes tax rate, budget

Breckenridge City Commissioners approved the budget and tax rate for fiscal year 2022, following a public hearing last Tuesday. The city accepted a tax rate which was lowered from the previous year’s rate of $1.12229 per $100 of valuation.

The adopted rate of $1.06000 per $100 of valuation includes a maintenance and operation rate of $0.76052 per $100 of valuation and a general fund debt service rate of $0.29948 per $100 of valuation. According to the city’s tax rate public notice, the adopted rate would increase the total tax levy of all properties by $103,832, with taxes increasing on the average homestead by $153.73.

The commission also passed their budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Before the public hearing started, Breckenridge City Manager, Erika McComis, spoke to commissioners about changes she had made to the initial proposed budget.

“When I got here, the general fund that was put together, it was a little over, it wasn’t a balanced budget. Staff and I worked over the last week to balance that out because I like to have a balanced budget. If there’s anything that needs to be added then we can come ask out of fund balance,” she said. “We did remove roof repair and carpet here at the city facilities, (the) mosquito machine was taken out. There were certain expenses, that once we talked to departments, were allocated in two different funds, so those were removed.”

McComis also explained that this budget did not contain raises for city employees and said that around 60% of the employees had not had a raise since January 2018.

“That’s one thing that we really need to look for over the next year and (...) we’ll be looking at the revenue about mid-year and possibly bringing that back to commission to consider. Every 1% (raise) would be about $24,000,” McComis said.

According to the city’s budget, the general fund budget increased overall by $304,096 from the 2020-2021 budget. The city manager budget increased from $58,491 in the 2020-2021 budget to $177,600. There was also an increase in the police and fire department budgets of $151,100 and $88,050 respectively.

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