Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill14564
We *were* all paying $125 + 1.3mills for fire protection (= $530 in my case)
We *will* be paying $320.71 + 0.03mills estimated for fire protection (= $330 in my case)
We will be paying $0 for fire protection through the county budget. If there is no change by the commissioners I will say that they increased my taxes by at least 1.3mills to pay for even more county services. I don't know yet if I will agree with the services or not, but they will NOT be fire protection services.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill14564
It will be important to see that the Sumter County Commissioners reduce the millage rate by the 1.3mills that covered fire protection this year. If the cost of fire protection is removed from the budget then property taxes can be lowered by that amount. If that happens, if the 1.3mills are removed, then my overall taxes will be reduced by almost $200.
My expectation is that the property tax rate will be reduced but not by the full 1.3mills. I will still be saving money on fire protection but I will be paying more for some additional service in the county. Then again, this is an election year.
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Well, the BoCC proved me wrong! The proposed budget, available from the minutes of the recent working group, shows the property tax remaining the same as this year PLUS the MSTU for TVPSDDD PLUS the increased MSBU. My effective tax rate will be going up, even in an election year!
I haven't gone through an analysis yet but what I see so far is
- - The property tax rate is being set at the rollback rate - this is defined by Florida as neither a tax increase nor a tax decrease
- - Transfers for fire protection drop from $35M in 23-24 to $19M in 24-25 - a $16M decrease in expenditures with 0% decrease in property tax rate
- - The TVPSDDD MSTU of 0.0272 mills will be added resulting in a property tax INCREASE
- - We already know (the subject of this thread) that the MSBU will be increased from $125 to $321 - a fee increase
- - A transfer of $12M to TVPSDDD will cover ALS Readiness - legally, this was not allowed to be covered by the new MSBU
- - The amount transferred this year to cover ALL TVPSD services including ALS was $20M
- - The TVPSDDD report that calculated the $321 MSBU showed funding for fire protection only (no ALS) at $25M/year
Putting the last few together, it looks like the TVPSD was able to function and provide ambulance service in the 23-24 year for $20M. However, when the TVSPDDD stands up in 24-25 it will need $37M to provide the same services.
I need to spend time calculating what my effective property tax increase is going to be.
If I have misstated something above or appear to be misunderstanding anything, please let me know.
EDIT: It seems there will be a POA meeting tonight where the County Administrator will discuss the 24-25 budget. He will not be able to talk about the TVPSDDD budget but he SHOULD be able to explain why ALS Readiness in 24-25 will cost more than 50% of what ALL fire protection plus ALS cost in 23-24 AND why fire protection costs were reduced by $16M yet property tax rates were not able to be decreased below the rollback rate.