The Sun manipulated everything by only referencing the increases for business on percentage terms without giving actual numbers and than finding people who kept saying they would be forced to move if fire protection went up by 200.

The previous/current fee is $124. This will probably be increased to $125. This fee was assessed to rooftops or sometimes consolidated properties. The lofts at Brownwood may have been assessed $620 for five buildings or possibly only $124 for one property. I believe Grand Traverse plaza also was assessed $124 total.

The new fee would have increased from $124 to $323.63 for residential properties but also had a new structure for commercial properties. Some, like apartment buildings, would have been assessed $323.63 per apartment while others would be assessed some amount (I don't remember exactly what) per square foot. Both the lofts and Grand Traverse plaza would have paid significantly more under this structure.

But none of that matters now. The fee will likely be $125 for you, me, the plaza, and the lofts.

Thanks!

Complex situation, will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Dont the lofts and grand traverse plaza also pay into the “fire fund” via their county taxes, based on assessed value - so they are paying much more than $124 each.

The sun also didn’t talk about the resident who passed away because the ambulance took 45 minutes to arrive.

How many people can’t afford another $200 a year?

And so are you and I. They and we would still be paying through property taxes if the new fees had been put in place.

What is being discussed is the only thing that was proposed to be changed and that was the new fee structure.

Very true. They only print what they are told to print.

Since we're going down that road. Sumter County officials would not comment before the vote on whether or not residents inside the proposed TVFD independent fire district would also continue paying for the SCFD. As it turns out that is what is exactly going to continue to happen. 80% of the taxpayers are paying for the other 20%.

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Since purchasing our first home in the Villages in 2007 I have attempted to do far more reading on this site than posting. By way of background, I retired after 35 years in law enforcement. The last ten years I served as the elected Sheriff of Virginia Beach Virginia, a community of a half million people. In addition, I served a four-year term on the Virginia Beach City Council, a two-year term on the Virginia Beach School Board, a ten-year term as Chairman and member of the Virginia Lottery Board, and eight years on a city board managing a several hundred-million-dollar deferred compensation plan. My expertise in governmental finance allowed me to teach governmental budgeting throughout the State of Virginia.

My first-hand observations have led me to believe that the vast majority of elected County Commissioners / City Council members do not have the fiscal acumen to fully understand the nuances of the local budget for which they are responsible. This leaves the power of the purse with the County / City Administrators and their staff. Typically, when staff faces push back against their recommendations they will respond with a “poison pill”. The “poison pill” usually starts with a service cut so draconian that it elicits pressure on the elected officials to accept the staff position.

I fully accept that I do not know if the above general observations apply to Sumter County specifically. I have been derelict in keeping up with our local officials and their positions. This is not intended to call into question their expertise or motives.
I would offer some alternatives based on my belief that tax dollars should be kept at a minimum to provide for the greater good of the majority of citizens and a greater reliance should be placed on user fees.

In example – if an irresponsible drunk driver causes a traffic crash the law-abiding community as a whole should not bear the cost of the emergency response of police, fire and rescue. That is why I proposed and enacted the “Emergency Response Cost Recovery” law while in Virginia Beach. That law imposes a civil penalty for the cost of such response which is in addition to any criminal fines and fees imposed.

The greatest potential for tax savings comes from the annual budget itself. If you have ever worked under a local, state, or federal governmental budget you know how inefficient it can be. Governmental budget managers and employees have learned long ago if they don’t spend all the appropriated funds this fiscal year, they won’t get that money back next fiscal year. This leads to wasteful and unnecessary expenditures.

While on the City Council, I proposed and enacted an employee “Gainsharing” plan. This plan started with implementing a performance-based budget to ensure services were provided in an effective and timely manner. The employees were then encouraged to complete their tasks in the most efficient and effective way possible. The reward for this modified behavior came at the end of the fiscal year when they received a bonus of a portion of every dollar saved. In today's work environment I would change the bonus plan to a secondary retirement plan with a vesting timeline to encourage retention.

Finally, as an EMT for our SWAT team I know firsthand the importance of the “Platinum Ten Minutes”. Getting a patient to the hospital as quickly and safely as possible greatly increases their survival rates. Our community is no longer “Mayberry”. We are a substantial and growing community that needs to implement modern technology to better serve our citizens. One such technology uses a traffic signal preemptor system to allow emergency vehicles to turn their upcoming signal to green for safer, quicker passage for them and reduces collisions with routine traffic. These systems began nearly thirty years age and are becoming more and more economical.

Whether we agree with all our elected officials and staff members on all issues I believe we owe them our gratitude for providing a service that allows us to live in a great community.

Good luck as I go back into hibernation.

We often forget that not everyone in Sumter County lives inside a literal bubble. I have been told that many people are struggling to make ends meet.

Lost in the discussion is total revenue. Sumter County revenue will increase by over $6 million without any tax increases or fire assessments.

They are trying to segment discussion about one part of the budget instead of it in entirety. The BOCC should be explaining why a $6 million a year increase isn’t enough.

True bit if we want better ambulance service we have to pay for it.

Total revenue for the general fund is projected to DECREASE by $5.5M with the defeat of the restructured fee.

Property tax revenue is projected to increase by $6M and fire assessments are projected to increase by $480K but these are offset by decreases elsewhere.

Fire service transfers decrease as well: $38M transferred in 2022-23 but only $35M budgeted for this year.

All of your info is wrong about these increases. Every villager would be happy to pay the $130 increase for firefighters/emu’s. The problems were that they were going to gouge every retailer here by many thousands of $$$ per year, which would have increased the cost of doing business here by quite a bit. From what I heard, a company like Galaxy would have their tax increase go from $1000 (+ or -) a year to over $12,000 a year. This was the area that people most complained about when it was dropped. We all pay the village tax if we use a company that operates in the villages, this new fee would have just made that tax go up for every villager.