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VILLAGE FINANCES - CAFR COMPARISON
It can be beneficial to look back at financial history and compare what existed then with what is now. What can we learn?
Each year the village commissions a CAFR or Certified Annual Financial Report. Often the 80-page to 100-plus-page document has charts in which a 10-year time span is shared. Here are three comparisons between the 2020 CAFR pages shown beside the 2008 CAFR pages. On the left is data from 1999 to 2008 while the latest CAFR shows data from 2011 to 2020 (at right).
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Above, from 1999 to 2008, the number of full-time employees grew from 20 to 85, while from 2011 to 2020, the number of employees grew from 85 to 120 -- this increase while our population has decreased. Has service kept pace with number of employees?
Below, the population was 7,632 in 1999, and by 2008, we had lost about 520 residents (7,113). Were we losing families? In 2011, our population had fallen even further to 6,147 but was at 6,400 in 2020. Meanwhile, per capita personal income grew from 33, 419 in 1999 to almost 63,000 in 2011 and 101, 262 in 2020.
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Remember when Islamorada had one fire station, one police station and two parks in 1999? How about now: three fire stations, one police station and six parks in 2020? This information and more is in the CAFR (see link on our front page). Meanwhile, get ready to express your needs and wants at the budget meetings Aug. 3 and 4.
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The Islamorada Village government on July 29 set a preliminary millage rate for 2021-2022 of 3.015, the same as this current fiscal year. That is $301.50 for every $100,000 of taxable property value. Although this is an increase of 5.83% above rollback, Manager Greg Oravec said he intends to suggest decreasing the millage rate as the budget process continues. He successfully decreased the millage rate year after year in Port St. Lucie.
The rolled back rate is the $289.90 per $100,000, and would raise the same amount of tax revenue as the current fiscal year, which ends Oct. 1.
Access to the 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report show the village millage rate for the years 1999-2008 (below, left). The 2020 CAFR shows the millage rate for the past 10 years.
