May 2010

May’s question: How much does the City pay for lifeguards?

Great question!

First off, the guards are technically called “Ocean Rescue” staff because they do much more than traditional “lifeguards” who normally patrol a swimming pool.  They receive their funds from the City of Tybee Island and are funded through the Fire Department’s budget.  For the last few years, the City has been spending about $350,000 a year on our Ocean Rescue operations.  Last year, thanks to support from our County Commissioner, Pat Farrell, and the support of the entire Chatham County Commission, the County chipped in $10,000 to help pay for additional Ocean Rescue staff on busy holidays and special events.  We also received a rescue boat recently from the Savannah-Chatham County Metropolitan Police Department at no charge.

While $350,000 sounds like a lot of money and is almost three times what was spent on Ocean Rescue a few years ago, keep in mind that the increase in this budget item was concurrent with a 50% increase in parking rates (from $1.00 to $1.50 an hour).  The Ocean Rescue staff keeps very detailed statistics and an analysis of their data reveals that Tybee folks very rarely need to be rescued.  Turns out Tybee citizens are pretty good swimmers.  So it makes sense that our parking revenue covers the of beach safety.  And while this is a service that rarely benefits our citizens, we do have an obligation to provide a safe experience for our visitors.

We continue to work on obtaining additional county and state support for our Ocean Rescue services but recognize that the current fiscal climate in not conducive to obtaining funds from other governmental entities.

Thanks for the question.

Until next month,
Jason Buelterman

Send questions to “Ask the Mayor,” City of Tybee Island, P.O. Box 2749, Tybee Island, GA 31328, or e-mail them with an “Ask the Mayor” header to buelterman@hotmail.com.

April 2010

This month’s question:
“You took our garbage cans away, so where are we supposed to put our garbage?”

The City decided a few years ago to implement a new trash collection system for the south end business district, and taxpayers invested a significant amount of money in the area in the winter of 2008, but we were still left with the problem of trash receptacles in plain view which made certain areas of our business district relatively unattractive.

We decided to do what many municipalities (including Savannah) have done to address this problem: using strategically-placed, relatively out-of-sight trash compactors.  We placed one on Atlantic and one on Lovell.  We did everything we could to minimize the hardship this created for the businesses in the area and tried to explain that it was being done in the final analysis to help the businesses by improving the appearance of the area.  However, there are problems with the system.  (Photo 2 was sent by the person who submitted this month’s question.) One of them is that sometimes the compactors are filled to capacity prior to pick-up with things like cardboard boxes.

One of the major problems we have is that many businesses simply place boxes adjacent to the compactors without placing them inside and hitting the button to compact the trash.  We are looking at the possibility of adding cardboard recycling in this area so that businesses who wish to recycle such material don’t have to bring it to the Department of Public Works which may help, and we may need to add one or more additional compactors.  We encourage our businesses to let the City know if and when the compactors fill up so that we can arrange for pick-up, and to use either compactor should one be full. The bottom line is that any new process will encounter some hiccups and problems.  We will do our very best to address these issues in a timely manner and are exploring long term solutions so that our businesses have a location to process their trash and recyclables.

Thanks for the great question.
Until next month,
Jason Buelterman

Send questions to “Ask the Mayor,” City of Tybee Island, P.O. Box 2749, Tybee Island, GA 31328, or e-mail them with an “Ask the Mayor” header to buelterman@hotmail.com.

Photo: Mayor Jason Buelterman assisted by Randy “Hatman” Smith, poses (while drawing names from the raffle basket) with limo ride winner, Alec Fanning and his mom, Deanna at The Last Song “Flip Flop” Pre-Movie Gala at the Tybee Gym on March 31st.  (Photo by Nancy Heffernan, The Tybee Times, copyright 2010)

March 2010

This month’s question:
“Why aren’t the parking meters taking credit cards?”

Due to a recent change in federal credit card regulations (buried in some seemingly innocuous paragraph in one of those 5000 page bills passed by Congress), the means by which credit card data is submitted for processing needed to be changed so to ensure an additional level of security.   Without such an upgrade, the City’s taxpayer’s would be held liable for any losses caused by use of credit card information.  Other communities that use similar technology are being forced to do these upgrades as well. Essentially, if someone’s credit card number was somehow acquired after use of our parking machines and that number was then used to make fraudulent purchases or cash advances, the individual whose number was stolen would of course contact his or her bank or credit card company.  The bank or company, after reimbursing the individual for the fraudulent charges, would then go after the City of Tybee to make up those losses.  So the City Council was forced to spend approximately $40,000 a year for the next three years to upgrade our existing system.  Due to this work, the machines are only taking coins at present.  They will start taking credit cards in the next few weeks once work on them is complete.

We have tried very hard to inform the public about the fact that the machines are only taking coins but it’s impossible to reach everyone. While in this case it can be argued that technology created more problems than it solved, it should be noted that since these machines were installed a few years ago, parking revenue has increased.  McDonald’s did a study about this a few years ago which showed that people are willing to spend slightly more money if it is being charged to a credit card than they are if they are using cash or coins.  This study led to installation of credit card machines at every single McDonald’s franchise.  And this has played out in our case here on Tybee as well.  In any event, this is the reason why the machines aren’t currently accepting credit cards.  Thanks for the great question!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!
Jason Buelterman

Send questions to “Ask the Mayor,” City of Tybee Island, P.O. Box 2749, Tybee Island, GA 31328, or e-mail them with an “Ask the Mayor” header to buelterman@hotmail.com.

This month’s question:  How do I know how much money I pay to the City of Tybee in property taxes?

For whatever reason, the powers that be have devised a mechanism for calculating property tax bills that is relatively complex.  Be that as it may, the Tybee mill rate is currently about 3.7.  To calculate your tax rate for Tybee municipal taxes, you take the value of your home, business or land (according to the county’s determination as to it’s value) and multiply it by .4 (you are taxed on 40% of the assessed value).  This number is then multiplied by the mill rate.  So, for example, if your home is valued at $400,000, this number is multiplied by .4 equaling $160,000.  This number is then multiplied by .0037 ( a “mill” is a tenth of a cent).  This gives you your taxes owed to the City of Tybee, in this case $592.00.

However, of course, this doesn’t take into account homestead exemptions. If your property is owner-occupied and is not used for business purposes, it generally qualifies for homestead exemptions.  The most significant of these is the county-wide Stephens-Day exemption, named for the authors of the legislation which created the exemption, State Representatives Burke Day and Ron Stephens.  It essentially locks in the value of your home at the time you purchase it.  So in the example above, if the home currently valued at $400,000 was valued at $200,000 at the time of purchase, then there is a $200,000 exemption on the property and for tax purpsoes it is valued at $200,000 as opposed to $400,000.

Also, in 2003, the City of Tybee enacted a $200,000 exemption for Tybee city taxes.  So again using the example above, since the home has a locked-in value of $200,000, the home owner pays $0 to the City.  About half the homeowners on Tybee have homes with a locked-in value less than $200,000 and pay nothing to the City in property taxes.  There are also additional senior citizen and other exemptions.  I have talked to many property owners who wait a few years to go to the County to sign up for the homestead exemptions that they are entitled to.  Because of Stepehens-Day (at least up until recently), this delay costs these folks thousands of dollars over the long haul.  I should also add that the millage rate referenced above does not include county and school tax rates, which are about 10.5 and 13.5, respectively.  Given Tybee’s relatively low millage rate coupled with the $200,000 exemption, the proportion of taxes paid to the City relative to that paid to other governmental entities is fairly small.  This is why we work very hard to recoup as much county, state and federal funds as possible for various projects on our Island.

Thanks for the great question!
Jason Buelterman

Send questions to “Ask the Mayor,” City of Tybee Island, P.O. Box 2749, Tybee Island, GA 31328, or e-mail them with an “Ask the Mayor” header to buelterman@hotmail.com.

January 2010

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and of course a happy new year!  This month’s question is: “Are we voting again on four year terms for mayor and city council?  I thought we just did that a few years ago.”

The simple answer is that there is a referendum on the ballot for Tybee voters in November 2010 about this issue.  A vote in the affirmative would give the mayor and council four year terms.  Should the referendum obtain a majority of votes, the first election cycle which would be affected would be the 2011 Tybee municipal elections.  For the first election under this possible new system, the winning candidate for mayor and top three council candidates would get four year terms and the fourth through sixth place council candidates would get two year terms.  In 2013, those three two year council seats would be on the ballot.  The three winning candidates and would get four year terms.  In 2015, the mayor’s seat three seats that were in the top three in 2011 would be on the ballot and subsequently all successful candidates for mayor and council would serve four year terms.

The issue was placed on the ballot for 2010 after the previous council (the one that served from 2008-2009) voted to ask the state legislature to place it on the ballot.  Our state legislators all agreed to this and consequently the referendum is on the ballot for 2011.

It is also true that this issue was recently on the ballot on Tybee and was emphatically rejected by the citizens.  Many felt that the referendum was defeated because it took place during the same election cycle as a Tybee municipal election leading to some confusion over which candidates would get four year terms.  Some felt the ballot language wasn’t clear enough.  And of course many others simply felt that the voters wanted to keep two year terms for the mayor and council.  I am optimistic that the next eleven months will give us a chance to analyze the pros and cons of four year terms and we can–one way or the other–put this issue to rest once and for all.

Thanks for the great question!
Jason Buelterman

Send questions to “Ask the Mayor,” City of Tybee Island, P.O. Box 2749, Tybee Island, GA 31328, or e-mail them with an “Ask the Mayor” header to buelterman@hotmail.com.