Your city tax rate is set: 5.9835 mills, the rolled-back rate, adopted 5–0

On Thursday, September 24, the City Commission adopted the tax rate and budget for the year that began October 1. Both passed 5–0, according to the meeting video. The hearing took under half an hour and one member of the public spoke.

What it means for your bill

• The city’s operating rate is 5.9835 mills — $5.9835 for every $1,000 of taxable value — down from 6.2270 last year, a 3.91 percent cut in the rate.
• That is exactly the “rolled-back rate.” The rolled-back rate is the number that would raise the same property-tax revenue as last year from the same properties. In Florida’s accounting, adopting it means the city is collecting no new property tax overall. Staff said that if the Commission had left the rate where it was, the city would have collected about $583,000 more.
• Your own bill can still move. The rolled-back rate holds the total steady in the aggregate, not house by house. If your assessed value rose more than the citywide average, your city tax goes up; if it rose less, it goes down. Homesteaded properties are capped at a 3 percent assessment increase a year, or the inflation rate if lower, under state law.
• The city tax line is not the whole story. Commissioner Mike Bracchi said it from the dais: the tax rate is flat, but water, sewer and fire assessment charges are up, so “ultimately, everyone is paying more.” The city’s own rate schedule shows the residential fire assessment actually fell this year, to $332.34 a home from $351.56. The garbage charge on the water bill rose 2.5 percent.
• Debt service: 0.1598 mills for the 2008 City Hall bond, down from 0.1661.
• The budget: $72,652,112 across all funds, with a $26,401,591 general fund — the part paid for mostly by property tax. Both figures came in slightly below the proposed budget ($72,684,097 and $26,749,675).

How the vote went

Four members were present at roll call; Vice Mayor Chris Caputo arrived during discussion and voted on both items.

Because the rate equals the rolled-back rate, the City Attorney confirmed no supermajority was required (0:06:00). The one public speaker, a member of the city’s Financial Advisory Board, thanked the Commission for adopting the board’s recommendation (0:03:30). In July the board had discussed cutting the rate to 6.0 mills; the adopted rate went further.

Where the cut came from

Commissioner Don D’Arminio laid out the arithmetic (0:06:30–0:08:30): this year’s 3.91 percent follows a roughly 3 percent cut last year, close to 7 percent over two years, alongside what he described as a 15 percent reduction in city headcount over four years.

The budget also counts on about $1.04 million in code enforcement fines, raised by about $41,000 at the final hearing to cover the last step of the rate cut. It was the line commissioners spent the most time on (0:16:30–0:21:00):

• One commissioner said he would support the budget but was “not supportive” of budgeting for higher fine revenue, and wanted it on the record that “we do not use code compliance as a revenue generator.”
• Vice Mayor Caputo said the revenue is not coming from residents and small fines but from a backlog of liens on non-homesteaded and commercial properties that have sat out of compliance for years — and that the backlog will eventually clear, so the number will not last.
• Commissioner D’Arminio said the city has collected about $1 million in each of the past three years, so budgeting for it is simply realistic; that the city’s unassigned fund balance stands at about 38 percent (the city’s published target is 15 to 20 percent); and that the fine revenue is part of what made the rate cut possible.
• Another commissioner noted the city began foreclosure proceedings on some properties this year, which prompted several owners to pay.

Commissioner Bracchi said he had wanted the rolled-back rate from the start of the process and would have liked to go lower to offset other fees, but would “not let perfection get in the way of a really good budget.” Mayor Scott Newton closed by inviting residents to bring ideas for lowering the budget to any commissioner before next year’s cycle.

Where the money goes

From the adopted resolution’s fund summary:

The water, sewer and drainage funds — about $30.6 million together — are where the city’s water and sewer rebuild sits, including projects financed through the federal WIFIA program. In response to a request from the dais, the City Manager said a capital-projects page listing every infrastructure project and its budget would be created if one does not already exist (0:21:30).

What happens next

• The rate is set for the year. The Broward County Property Appraiser mails TRIM notices in August and tax bills go out from the Tax Collector in November; the city line on the bill reflects this rate.
• The Commission’s November 10 meeting is cancelled, according to the city’s meeting portal. The next meetings are the organizational meeting and swearing-in on Tuesday, November 24, and the regular meeting that night, in Commission Chambers, 2020 Wilton Drive. Three minutes per speaker, no sign-up required.

---

Correction, October 29, 2026. An independent check against the agenda packets and the adopted budget found errors, now corrected above:

• The water, sewer and drainage funds total about $30.6 million, not $36.6 million, which had included the solid waste fund.
• The code enforcement line is $1.04 million, not “about $1 million in fines and foreclosure recoveries”; the budget has no separate foreclosure line.
• We added that the residential fire assessment fell this year, which the quote about fire assessment charges didn’t reflect.
• We added the city’s published fund-balance target.
• We added that the vote counts come from the video, since the hearing’s minutes haven’t been posted.
• We updated the next meeting date.

Updated October 3, 2026. This piece first ran on September 23 as a preview of the hearing. It now reports the adopted rate and budget, the roll calls and the discussion, from the meeting video and the adopted resolutions.

Correction, October 3, 2026. The preview said published accounts of last year’s adopted millage disagreed and declined to publish a year-over-year comparison. The adopted resolution’s agenda report from the Finance Director, and its attachment, state the prior-year operating rate as 6.2270 mills and debt service as 0.1661, so the comparison now appears above. (Corrected October 29: this note first credited those figures to the resolution’s own text.) The preview also gave the proposed-budget totals as provisional; the adopted figures replace them.