In action taken during their June 19 meeting, the Alpharetta City Council adopted a $154 million capital and operating budget for Fiscal Year 2024 while holding the City’s property tax millage rate at 5.75 mills, the same rate the City has maintained since 2009. The budget includes a portfolio of homestead property tax exemptions that provide more than $6.7 million in savings to Alpharetta homeowners.
The budget is built with a focus on ten priorities that the Mayor and City Council identified earlier this year during their annual strategic planning session. Those priorities are:
• Strategic growth and development
• Safe and welcoming community
• The AlphaLoop and Big Creek Greenway
• Downtown Alpharetta
• Communications that connect
• Recreation, parks, and culture
• Infrastructure and facilities maintenance
• Transportation and traffic
• People-focused workforce
• Economic development
The City’s approved capital budget includes investments totaling $15.7 million focused on maintaining and improving city infrastructure, including over $3.7 million dedicated to milling and resurfacing of existing streets and roadways and $4 million to maintain and improve stormwater infrastructure. More than $1.5 million is dedicated to maintenance and upgrades to City parks, including $500,000 to replace artificial turf on the Miracle League adaptive ball field at North Park.
The operating budget reflects a 12% increase in non-personnel related maintenance and operating expenses driven primarily by inflationary growth in materials such as concrete, asphalt, and technology equipment and labor-intensive contracted services such as landscape maintenance and janitorial maintenance. Technology costs, alone, are expected to increase by $726,090 over the current fiscal year. The increase also includes $389,359 in anticipated expenses associated with Fulton County running the November 2023 municipal election, a cost below what the City forecast the election would have cost had the City run it rather than contracting with the County.
New operating initiatives included in Alpharetta’s FY2024 budget total just over $3 million. Just over half of that investment, $1.75 million, is targeted to market-driven salary adjustments to ensure that the City of Alpharetta retains its ability to retain and attract quality employees. An additional $333,000 supports the creation of a “real time crime center” that brings together a wide array of technologies and capabilities focused on crime reduction and response to ensure that Alpharetta remains among the safest communities around.
For detailed information on the City of Alpharetta’s capital and operating budgets for the 2024 fiscal year, please download our
2024 Capital And Operating Budget