Tallahassee Budget Report
Reporter: Liza Park
Email Address: liza.park@wctv.tv
We’re taking a closer look at Tallahassee by the numbers. The city recently released its latest facts and figures in a report. In these tight economic times… a clear picture of your budget is increasingly important… and in an effort to do this for Tallahassee residents, the City of Tallahassee has broken down its budget in its annual "Report To Our Citizens."
"The pie charts are very important because they do give you an idea where the revenue cmes from and how much is generated from taxes," says Tallahassee Mayor John Marks.
Looking at the pie charts… taxes make up 44 percent of the general fund revenue followed by 25 percent from transfers in… which is money transferred from the business fund.
That business fund makes up the wealth of revenue for the Capital City… and most of that comes from electric profit as the city owns its own utility company.
"A lot of residents will pick up information from this document that they’ve probably never though about and didn’t know existed. For example, 84% of the city’s revenue comes from business type activities," explains Tallahassee City Auditor Sam McCall.
Those business type activities pay for things from fuel to debt service… but fuel takes the biggest piece of the pie gobbling 45 percent.
That translates into 313 and a half million dollars spent mostly on natural gas to run the city’s utilities.
Whereas the general fund’s largest expense is the police department… taking 35 percent.
Overall, the city’s operating budget for fiscal year 2009 comes to about 841 and a half million dollars.
To take a look at the "Report To Our Citizens," you can click onto http://www.talgov.com.