Key Biscayne residents will have an opportunity to question Village officials and recommend budget priorities during a community meeting Wednesday, Aug. 19.<\/p>\n
Village Manager Steve Williamson and Chief Financial Officer Benjamin Nussbaum will explain the process and review the proposed 2026-27 budget beginning at 6 p.m. in the Lighthouse Room at the Key Biscayne Community Center.<\/p>\n
The preliminary spending plan totals $56.1 million, including a $44.4 million baseline operating budget \u2014 about $966,000, or 2.1%, below the current fiscal year. Another $7.5 million would come through special revenue and enterprise funds, while approximately $4.1 million is included for eight recommended new initiatives.<\/p>\n
Among those initiatives are $1.3 million to renourish beaches and dunes, $1.25 million to replace the athletic field turf at MAST Academy, $500,000 to rehabilitate Village facility elevators and $350,000 to replace police vehicles. Other proposals include replacing a police boat, adding a firefighter, upgrading the Community Center sewer system and improving the Council Chamber\u2019s multimedia equipment.<\/p>\n
The MAST field project would be funded through a 50-50 partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Several other projects also depend on matching funds or grants.<\/p>\n
The Village Council set a preliminary maximum property tax rate of 3.0066 mills, 4.2% above the current 2.8846 rate. That figure establishes a ceiling and may be lowered before the budget is adopted. Mayor Joe Rasco has said he expects the final rate to come down.<\/p>\n
The proposal also includes a multiyear capital improvement program totaling approximately $64.1 million, with nearly $27 million directed toward flood reduction and $10.4 million toward public safety. The projects would draw from grants, bond proceeds, the general fund and money carried over from previous years.<\/p>\n
During an earlier workshop, Village leaders also discussed sponsorships, naming opportunities and other creative partnerships that could help support future projects without relying entirely on property taxes.<\/p>\n
The Aug. 19 meeting is intended to give residents a less formal opportunity to ask questions and offer recommendations before the budget returns to the Council for formal hearings in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Key Biscayne residents will have an opportunity to question Village officials and recommend budget priorities during a community…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[149056,502,149054,149055,126,123,125,124],"class_list":["post-367967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-capital-improvement-program","tag-community","tag-community-budget","tag-community-budget-workshop","tag-key-biscayne","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}