Atlanta's latest proposed budget has additional funding for code enforcement, more police officers and closer supervision of children in after-school programs.
The city's spending will shrink by nearly $11 million, or roughly 2 percent, to about $540 million in the 2013 fiscal year that begins July 1, according to a budget proposal that the City Council is set to consider this month.
The lower spending is largely from a reduction in the amount budgeted to reserves. Leaders say the city can reduce the amount of cash pushed into the reserve fund because Atlanta's reserves are scheduled to hit $110 million, equal to about 20 percent of the general fund, within two months.
The budget does not include an increase in property tax rates. The millage rate will remain constant at 10.24 mills, meaning a home valued at $200,000 would incur a property tax bill of $2,048.
The budget proposal predicts revenue of $526 million -- a roughly $26 million drop from the year before.
To plug the roughly $13.8 million gap between spending and revenue in 2013, city officials plan to use unassigned funds from 2012.
Duriya Farooqui, the city's chief operating officer, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Atlanta has several policies in place to control its expenses. Her signature is required for any hiring or advertisement of an open job, she said.
"We are making resources stretch further," Farooqui said Tuesday. "We're doing much more with much less."
Mayor Kasim Reed told the newspaper this year that healthy reserves could be a key part of a potential bond offering to fund infrastructure projects. Atlanta has an estimated $922 million backlog of necessary repairs to bridges, streets, sidewalks and signs.
The City Council must approve the city's budget before it takes effect.
Some highlights of new or incremental funding in the 591-page budget document:
- Addition of 41 police officers amounts to $1.6 million in additional funding for the police department. The proposal calls for the city to reach 2,000 police officers, a longstanding goal, by the end of the 2013 fiscal year.
- Six new code compliance inspectors, as well as additional research staff, account for $619,000 more in the Atlanta Police Department's budget.
- Six additional recreation facilities managers will cost $314,000. They would work for the city's Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs and be responsible for after-school programs and other activities. The provision for additional manpower came from complaints that managers were splitting time between rec centers, Farooqui said.
- Invest Atlanta, the city's economic development arm, gets an additional $1.1 million, for a total of $3 million. "We want to get out all across the world and tell people that Atlanta is an extremely productive and profitable place to invest," Brian McGowan, president of the agency, said Tuesday.
Some departments would see their allocations shrink. Atlanta's corrections department, for example, would get $2.2 million less for a reduction of 7.8 percent. Much of the savings are from more efficient use of water, according to city officers. The corrections department would actually add a handful of new staffers.
Most spending reductions are in the city's overhead expenses such as energy and water expenses.
"Expenditures have been reduced as revenues have declined," Jim Beard, Atlanta's chief financial officer, wrote in a letter to the City Council.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in February on the expected drop in revenue, which comes largely from shrinking real estate values inside city limits.
Beard said Atlanta is trying to get more money from a local option sales tax, a 1-percent sales tax that chips in about $100 million for Atlanta. The city shares the proceeds from the tax with Fulton County. A renegotiation of the current arrangement, under which Atlanta gets 42.87 percent of the tax allocation, is supposed to begin no later than July 1.
Atlanta is expected to argue that it deserves a bigger slice of the tax collections because of its retail base and other factors.
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