I liken the increases as a result of the deferral cancellation to the tax situation in Sumter County.
Everyone enjoyed low low taxes for a long long time, because that was what "the people" wanted. It's what they voted for, and what their representatives delivered.
The costs climbed ever upward, slowly, every year, until one year when they realized there wasn't enough buffer in the county coffers to cover the costs of - much of anything. The county was growing, more people = more wear and tear on the infrastructure, and more need for more utility work, and more need for more schools, and more curbing, more lights, more trash pickup, more traffic lights and stop signs, more fire department garages, more police, more everything. Inflation continued to rise, and maintaining what they HAD wasn't enough anymore. They had to add MORE STUFF to accommodate MORE PEOPLE. So they said they had to raise the taxes significantly. And everyone freaked out.
The alternative would be to NOT have all those improvements, that wouldn't have been needed for another 20 years if the farms hadn't been gutted and replaced by thousands of single-family homes. We'd be driving on roads with pot-holes or dirt roads, there'd be no traffic lights, no road striping, no extra fire departments, no more police, no place for area businesses to live, no place for their kids to go to school.
Low taxes = low services. It's just a fact of life. High taxes don't always mean high services, but low taxes always means low services. The same goes for amenities. Don't forget all those amenities are overseen and run by employees. Most of them are minimum-wage employees. Minimum wage has gone up several dollars per hour over the past few years. If the amenity fees don't increase, eventually, you'll have to cut the amenities or accept disrepair as the new normal.
|