Polk Dips Into North Ridge CRA Funds to Balance Budget
BARTOW | Polk County Commissioners voted today to divert $4.4 million from the North Ridge Community Redevelopment Agency’s budget to help balance next year’s county budget.
The unanimous vote came as the commission sat as the board of the North Ridge CRA.
“We’ve had a number of years of loss of revenue because of actions by the Florida Legislature and the economy,’’ County Manager Jim Freeman said this morning.
He said he is looking for places to get money to fix a projected $8 million deficit.
Commissioners agreed at their annual retreat earlier this year to use reserves to cover half of it. The money from the CRA will take care of the rest of it.
CRAs are funded by tax increments, which involve getting property tax revenue from any increased value in the tax roll within the CRA’s boundary after it was created. The North Ridge CRA was created in 2002.