ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Next week, Orange Beach residents will vote on the property tax referendum that will increase ad valorem taxes 2 mils.

Working to keep from cutting any city services, the tax, which would still keep Orange Beach with one of the lowest tax rates in the county, would help give a boost to revenue which is expected to be more than $2 million dollars.

Mayor Tony Kennon said that the tax increase is not something that is desired, especially during the down economy, nor is it something being advocated by him or the council.

But in the opinion of the Orange Beach Citizens Finance Committee, it is the only way the city will be able to avoid a short fall and prevent from cutting important city services.

“We all have our personal opinion on this, but as an elected body, we are neutral,” Kennon said regarding he and the council. “We do not want this to be a divisive issue during a very tough time. We have to address it now, however, to make it effective for 2012, so we don’t really have a lot of time.”

Kennon said he always wants citizens involved and for them to have a voice in how the city runs. That is why this has been presented as a referendum.

“Folks in town will make the decision about whether they want a tax increase or not. I will completely abide by whatever the folks in town decide,” Kennon said.

Going into the budgeting process, Kennon said there are multi-year concerns.

“We don’t know what will happen with some of our retail businesses, we don’t know what visitors will be returning or how many, we don’t know what our BP reimbursement is going to be and we don’t know what our property values are going to do. We can easily see a $4 million dollar swing in revenues over the next two to three years. Revenues are going down, we do know that.”

Kennon said the bottom line is the referendum will pass and the city will be able to maintain the current level of services, or if voted down, there will be likely be decreases in services and personnel.

“If things improve, we will have the ability to remove the tax at anytime we choose, and that is important to remember. We need citizens to hold our feet to the fire. If revenues improve and things are going through the roof, we need to be reminded that we would remove the tax. I can’t speak for anybody else, but I would certainly do it.”

Councilman Jeff Silvers echoed what  Kennon said.

“It is all up to what you want folks,” Silvers said. “Go to the polls and vote. There are a lot of folks in the community that want to keep the level of services of the police and fire where they are now, but we are down 20- some-odd percent of employees of where we were two years ago. Nobody likes more taxes, but if you like your community the way it is you need to go vote.”

Councilman Ed Carroll said the increase was not something that anybody wanted to do, but felt it was important to the future to the community.

“It is what we’ve go to do to keep this community together. We need to band together as a community and show people that we can make it and that we are going to make it.”

According to the Orange Beach Citizens Finance Committee, when the present administration took office, there were 290 city employees. Presently there are 223, yet the amount of services provided by the city has not changed.

“We are going to balance the budget based on what our revenues are,” Kennon said. “To balance the budget, there are consequences sometimes as far as services go.”

The polls will be open on Tuesday from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. for citizens to vote on the referendum.