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Originally Posted by charlie1
I guess now we know why Sumter County did not release estimated county fees for fire assessment during the referendum. I know people were worried about The Villages fees and the taxes for the Villages Fire Department but at least the Villages Fire Management was open as to what their fees and taxes would be. I am sure the fees would have been much higher for the rest of Sumter had the referendum passed. The Villages Fire district would have had the majority of the homes and the highest residential tax assessments in the county. The county wanted to spread these dollars over the whole county. Protection is very concentrated so cost are probably less per home in the Villages. The rest of the county is very much rural and very spread out which results in higher cost for the same protection! Hopefully this is a lesson learned! Again, than you to the Villages Fire Department for being UPFRONT on the cost of the department! By the way, this does not mentioned any increase in the county budget for fire protection which are paid with general county taxes.
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Well said. The county is using the fire assessment increase to offset their contribution to the increased cost of the fire/ems services due to the addition of ambulance services. So instead of increasing the cost proportionally across the entire county via the county tax rate, village residents get to pay more because the cost is per rooftop verses assessed property value. This basically doubled the increase most village households would have incurred if the fire district had been approved.