The city of Anna Maria’s record-high fiscal 2025-26 budget — and a tax increase for property owners — is one vote away from adoption.
City commissioners held a public hearing and unanimously voted Sept. 11 to approve the first reading of an ordinance adopting a $28,255,000 budget and 1.65 millage rate for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
The city set its current millage rate of 1.65 mills per $1,000 of property value as the tentative millage for fiscal 2025-26 earlier this summer.
The millage rate is the amount per $1,000 of property value used to calculate ad valorem property taxes.
Under the current 1.65 millage rate, the owner of a property appraised at $500,000 pays $825 in property taxes.
While that percentage rate would not change, the city’s total taxable value increased by 6.48% — from $2,328,488,174 to $2,479,351,952 — so the municipality will net $104,362 more than it earned this year in ad valorem taxes.
The city would have to adopt its 1.6283 rollback rate to raise the same amount of ad valorem revenue as the municipality collected this year.
Under the rollback rate, the owner of property appraised at $500,000 would pay $814.15 in property taxes.
Any millage higher than the rollback results in a tax hike.
Anna Maria was the only city on the island to record an increase in total taxable property value over last year, according to the Manatee County Property Appraiser.
The proposed $28,255,000 spending plan represents a $10,449,000, or 58.7%, increase over this year’s budget.
That spike is due to $16,019,000 in capital outlay expenses, including $8.2 million to rebuild the destroyed Anna Maria City Pier walkway, $2.7 million for stormwater capital improvements and $1.3 million to finish the Pine Avenue paver and crosswalk project.
The city will pay for those projects and more with $17,899,000 in funding from outside sources, including from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the state and Manatee County.
Mayor Mark Short said the $1,896,548 in proposed reserves was more than $1.5 million less than the $3,435,088 in adopted reserves for this year.
He said the spent reserves were used to pay for costs related to last year’s storms and the city was due for reimbursement.
Short said the reimbursement funds would be used to replenish the city’s reserves back to where it was last year.
There was no public comment on the proposed budget and millage rate.
A second reading and potentially final public hearing will be at 5:01 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, at city hall, 10005 Gulf Drive.