Wilton Manors property taxes went up 10% last year, and a similar increase is likely this year. Lots of factors are to blame, including a stagnant population, declining tax revenues, and soaring expenses including health and building insurance.
While final budget decisions are ultimately up to city commissioners, Wilton's Financial Advisory Board (FAB) is expected to take an active role in shaping the final plan.
During their meeting on Jan. 14, commissioners appointed three new FAB members: Andrew Gill, Daniel Rahm, and Anthony Wetherington.
Wetherington has an MBA in finance and boasts 32 years in banking, finance, and regulatory environments, including 10 years in US Regulatory Reporting.
Rahm also has 30 years of experience in finance and has a self-described “passion...for number crunching.”
Gill is a former commercial attorney who currently manages 10 Community Development Districts across Florida, where he oversees budgets, financial reporting, capital projects, and emergency preparedness.
Despite finishing on time (late September), the 2024/25 budget process felt very rushed. FAB didn’t get its first look at the spending plan until mid-July, giving them only about two weeks to look it over and make suggestions.
Commissioners expect to get the board involved much earlier this year.
“This is going to be a very, very lean year, I believe,” Mayor Scott Newton said after the vote. “Like all things, things come to a screeching halt when it comes to 10, 15, 18 per cent property values going up every year.”
Finding a new healthcare insurance provider and delaying some capital upgrades helped ease the budget cuts for the current year.
“We have run into a couple stumbles. We’ve had four or five projects that were supposed to start a year or two ago and they have not. Some have actually sold. One of them is where Alibi is. Stiles used to own that property and I think they sold it for eight million and they just bought it back for $28 million. This commission has worked hard in the past to make sure what’s going to happen in the future. This is going to be a very, very lean year, I believe. It’s going to have some big issues and some questions we are going to have to ask ourselves.”
