Gainesville selects millage rate increase, preps for shortfalls in future budgets

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut speaks at the city's July 17, 2025, meeting.
Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut speaks at the city's July 17, 2025, meeting.
Photo by Seth Johnson

The Gainesville City Commission gave direction Thursday to raise the property tax rate by 0.3 mills in the coming year while cutting eight vacant positions, freezing nearly 20 vacant positions and opening up four new police officer positions.  

The millage increase would raise $3.4 million more than if the rate stayed flat and $9.4 million more than the city levied in property taxes this year.  

For home with a $200,000 property value (different than the listing price), the owner would pay around $60 more per year for property taxes if it doesn’t have the homestead exemption. It would be around $45 more per year with the homestead exemption. 

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With Thursday’s decisions, the year-over-year general fund budget will increase $10 million—from $155 million to $165 million. The Gainesville Police Department (GPD) accounts for $5 million of the larger budget and Gainesville Fire Rescue adds another $2 million. These increases were largely driven by personnel costs as unions negotiate higher salaries and GPD works to bolster staffing.  

The city of Gainesville faced several revenue shortfalls along with the rising personnel costs. The city reported a loss of $3 million from Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU). That loss comes as GRU and general government disagree over the cost of services each provides for the other along with a $1.3 million reduction for streetlights that the utility has eliminated from its annual transfer to the city.  

GRU has said that general government bears the responsibility for the streetlight costs and stands by the service agreements. The City Commission has tried to remove itself from the agreement. 

City Manager Cynthia Curry, who announced her resignation a week ago, said the city will continue to struggle through budget shortfalls in the coming years. A five-year estimate of revenues and expenses shows that even with a maximum millage rate increase this year and then holding flat, the city would have shortfalls each year through 2031 and beyond. 

Mayor Harvey Ward said no matter who sits on the dais in the coming years, property taxes will likely rise.  

“The world gets more expensive,” Ward said. “City government is not immune from inflation. That’s a real thing, so we need to be aware that that is likely.” 

Commissioner James Ingle said he didn’t want to make structural changes to the city when the question of GRU management remains unsettled.  

“If we continues on this path without some adjustment, we’re going to be running into trouble in a year or two, real trouble,” Ingle said.  

With the preliminary budget approved on Thursday, Gainesville would restore full service to RTS bus routes 5 and 8. The service will be partially paid for by UF through a new negotiation and partly by the city at half a million dollars annually.  

Also in the budget, the City Commission voted to freeze 19.75 full time employee positions, each currently vacant, and completely eliminate eight other vacant positions. Curry said eliminating all these positions will have an impact, and she said it may be necessary in following years.  

GPD Chief Nelson Moya speaks at an Oath of Office ceremony in September.
Photo by Seth Johnson GPD Chief Nelson Moya speaks at an Oath of Office ceremony.

Commissioners also argued back and forth on whether to keep nine GPD officer positions unfilled for the coming year. The nine positions are currently frozen, but GPD Chief Nelson Moya said the pipeline to fill vacant positions is filling up.  

GPD has around 27 positions currently budgeted but vacant. Moya said many of those positions will likely be filled by the end of October. If the nine officer positions remain frozen, then the department would need to tell candidates to wait.  

Moya highlighted that GPD is already staffed at a lower level than previous years. The department had more than 50 vacancies a few years ago and sat at a critical staff level. In 2017, he said GPD had 311 full-time employees compared to 280 now.  

In the end, the City Commission voted to unfreeze four of the officer positions and keep five frozen like they’ve been for the last year. Even without the extra four positions, GPD will be staffed at a higher level this year than last year as the department climbs to stability.  

Moya said every GDP unit is stressed and that getting the nine frozen positions would give the opportunity to get back to where the department should be.  

“I’ve told y’all of the dozens of cases held by each detective. I’ve told y’all the hundreds of cases that come in that are fraud related that we can’t touch. We triage that and barely hang on,” Moya said. 

With the budget passed Thursday, the city will used a couple million in savings to fill the budget gap. The city has around $9.4 million in excess, unallocated dollars in its fund balance. 

Commissioner Ed Book said he’s like to spend around one-third of that extra money toward this year’s budget, still leaving room for coming years. This money is already in excess of the city’s established maximum for the fund balance—which is $47 million.  

Other commissioners worried about other projects that might pop up and need fund balance dollars in the coming years.  

Commissioner Ed Book advocated for using more of the city's reserve funds to fill the budget gap.
Photo by Seth Johnson Commissioner Ed Book advocated for using more of the city’s reserve funds to fill the budget gap.

The City Commission had two votes: one for the millage rate and one to decide additional cuts.  

The motion to raise the millage rate from 6.4297 mills to 6.7297 mills passed 6-1 with Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker in dissent.  

The motion to freeze 19.75 positions, keep five GPD positions frozen and unfreeze four GDP positions passed 4-3, with commissioners Book, Desmon-Walker and Chestnut in dissent.  

Curry said she would return at the Aug. 21 meeting with an update on how the budget shakes out with the decisions and exactly how much fund balance would be used.  

The City Commission also decided not to cut around $2 million in funding to outside agencies (almost all going to GRACE Marketplace). 

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