Johns Creek OKs $55.3M balanced budget

The Johns Creek City Council has approved a balanced budget for fiscal 2017 with a general fund anticipating about $55.3 million in revenues, 0.57 percent more overall than in the current fiscal year.

Sales and property taxes account for the largest portions of 2017 revenue streams, with sales tax revenues rising by a projected 2 percent, officials said. The Council will use previously reserved funds of $2.5 million to continue the city’s residential paving program. Base personnel expenditures are down by more than 4 percent, and base operations expenditures, by 0.87 percent.

The final budget is reduced from an earlier draft that envisioned a general fund of nearly $56 million, 1.81 percent higher than the prior year.

In August, the Council voted to trim the city’s millage rate for the first time in its 10-year history, to 4.360 from 4.614. Had the rate stayed the same, Johns Creek would have realized a gain of about 2 percent, or $374,581, in net taxes levied because of growth in its tax digest.

“This balanced budget, the city’s 11th consecutive, was made easier by the priorities of the new strategic plan and 10-year financial model, which allows city leaders to test various policy and resource decisions to better detect future impacts,” said Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker.