Payment of a hefty code enforcement fine could help Bradenton Beach reduce its millage rate for the next budget year.
Commissioners and Mayor Bob Bartelt spent the summer whittling down a proposed 2011-12 spending plan so they could at least keep the tentative millage rate the same as for the 2010-11 budget.
In late July, the commission set the tentative millage rate at 2.1539 mils, keeping the rate at the current level.
Last week, city clerk Nora Idso advised commissioners that a $70,000 payment in code enforcement fines on foreclosure property in the 2500 block of Gulf Drive North could reduce the millage rate to 2.1359 mils.
“Due to the unexpected $70,000 from code enforcement fines, the city will be able to reduce its millage rate … with no financial impact to the city,” Idso wrote in a memo.
She said the city also would be able to put some of the $70,000 toward an unexpected expense in 2010-11, the $350,000 purchase of a Gulffront lot that settled a longstanding property dispute between the city and a developer.
The commission will review the 2011-12 $2.3 million spending plan at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13, in the first of two public hearings on the budget. At that meeting, the commission will set a final millage rate.
A second hearing, to adopt a final budget, will take place at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, at city hall, 107 Gulf Drive N.
The city’s fiscal year is from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.