|
Voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment One in an apparent “better than nothing” bid for property tax relief, even after being told that the average household will see a reduction of perhaps $240 per year or $20 per month. While no one would pass up an opportunity to pick up a $20 bill blowing in the gutter, it is hardly a sufficient sum to think about quitting work, retiring early or even buying much of anything more than lunch for two. For those whose property tax bills have risen by hundreds and even thousands of dollars in recent years, it very nearly is an insult. Yet, “better than nothing.
”The size of state or national budgets and the sources of revenue that fund them quite literally is unfathomable to most people. Governor Charlie Crist just released his a $70 billion budget proposal for next year. The Legislature will spend much of the next three months debating this behemoth. If $70 billion is hard to fathom, begin at the local level. Despite all of the hoopla, property taxes, as you should know, are not actually the Legislature’s province. Most of the state’s revenue comes from sales taxes and sources such as gambling revenue. Property taxes are set by our elected city and county officials, not to mention a couple of dozen miscellaneous agencies concerned with everything from ground water to buses to juvenile welfare. Even here in Safety Harbor, one of the smallest municipalities in Pinellas County, City Manager Matthew Spoor is able to assure the commission that property tax revenue accounts for a mere 7.8% of the city’s total budget. He projects the initial impact of Amendment One in Safety Harbor to be a reduction of about $300,000 in taxes collected. The city’s general fund, where most of the property tax revenue is spent, last year was about $12 million or about $1 million per month. A reduction of $300,000 requires spending about $25,000 less each month — about 2.5%.
Ten years ago, Safety Harbor’s general fund budget was approximately $7.2 million or about $600,000 per month. In 10 years, the city has been able to increase its spending by $400,000 per month while being able to proclaim that it is holding the line on taxes. In fact, the city does have one of the lowest millage rates in Pinellas County. It has held the line on the RATE at which it taxes. WHAT it taxes, however, is the assessed value of property, which has more than doubled in Safety Harbor during that decade. The city has benefited from strong local property values as has every other government that collects property taxes.
Meanwhile, an increasingly “business-like” approach to government levies fees for services, which provide a hefty portion of the 92.2% of city revenue that does not come from property taxes. That is a very reasonable approach, yet somehow the transition to fees for services has not resulted in a reduction in general taxation even as important components of government service have become self-supported enterprises. Not to be forgotten is that municipalities also receive a share of state sales taxes, a local option sales tax known as “Penny for Pinellas” and a host of miscellaneous taxes on services such as cable television, telephone, electricity and natural gas.
Amendment One results in a slight tax reduction and doesn’t begin to reform the state’s bewilderingly complex system of taxation. It was much ado about not very much.
|
Front Page 
Op-Ed 
