Orange City’s leaders have taken the next-to-last step in setting their spending and revenue policies for the coming fiscal year, and there is some good news for property owners.

“I think everybody is hurt by inflation, and so is the city,” Orange City Finance Director Devlin Moore told the City Council Sept. 13.

As matters now stand, the city’s 2023-24 budget totals just under $17 million, and it is funded in part with an ad valorem levy of 7.1209 mills, or $7.12 per thousand dollars of taxable property value. That rate is well below the 7.69 mills set for the fiscal year now ending, and it is lower than the 7.5-mill tentative rate set by the council earlier. City Manager Dale Arrington said she and her team made a “really tight” budget, in keeping with the sentiments of the City Council.

“This is a culmination of nine months of work,” she added. “Times are tough out there. … We were committed to not raising the millage rate. We reached our goal.”

The budget, Arrington said, parallels the plight of those paying taxes.

“City government is facing all the same problems that our residents are facing, and businesses,” she added. “Our costs of goods have gone up.”

Moreover, Arrington noted, Orange City is experiencing difficulties in “employee recruitment and retention.”

“It’s a tough market out there,” she said.

To make working for the city more attractive, the proposed budget includes a 4-percent pay raise for the municipal employees.

“I personally appreciate that we were able to get a 4-percent increase across the board,” Vice Mayor Bill O’Connor said. “That is going to help everybody.”

Yet, Arrington cautioned, the city needs more workers. She cited a need for “a work/life balance,” that must be factored into future budget deliberations.

“We have pushed our staff and pushed our resources to the limit,” she said.

Not least, capital equipment and infrastructure are aging and in need of replacement and maintenance. Arrington urged the City Council to avoid deferring maintenance and replacement where such work is needed.

Orange City’s tentative Fiscal Year 2024 budget and property-tax rate will be up for the second and final public hearing and vote by the City Council at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26, at the City Hall Annex, 201 N. Holly Ave. If the council adopts the new budget and the property-tax rate, the spending and revenue measures go into effect Oct. 1.