Correct.
It's just increasing the Max Available.
When the fee goes to the max some day, it's $1 per day per house.
A lot of bad odor rising off of stale guacamole.

$360
 

So if they raised it to the allowable it would be $360.

While I "sort" of understand the issue at hand, that this is merely a decision to increase the maximum fire protection assessment from $125 to $360, it doesn't indicate that we in Sumter County will see this increase anytime soon. Yeah, right! If it is increased for future operations then you can bet the future will be here before you know it. The largest population in Sumter is here in The Villages. What are the assessment rates in Lake and Marion, which also is part of The Villages? How long has the maximum $125 been in effect from what it was before. Are the yearly calls for service by fire and EMS at such an increasing rate that it requires the fire assessment to be raised more than 200%? Look, folks, I want a good safety force too, but we are not New York City, where calls for service are a constant. We don't have the monstrous office buildings, and very few high rises in our county to address should there be a fire. We are mostly retired, older people on fixed incomes and many will not be in a position to afford these increases as they come about. I hope some of you that plan to attend the meeting will ask about the calls for service - what is the increase in CFS over the last five years in Sumter County. What is the assessment in Lake and Marion, and require them to qualify the need for the increase. We will be back in Ohio by the time the meeting takes place, or else we would have been there to ask a few of these questions ourselves.

three
 

All three of them said they would roll it back!

Read other posts, you will learn: the fire assessment that is currently at $126. This has been in place for 14 years and they are butting up to it at $125.


Google, you will learn more.

parking
 

That is one of the biggest parking lots in TV.

Yes, they certainly did, and they promised to make a property-tax rollback possible by requiring the Developer to pay a reasonable impact fee.

Miller is doing everything he can to make it happen and happen now. Unfortunately, Estep and Search initially agreed to postpone action until July-- apparently unaware of the Developer's Tallahassee maneuver to keep his sweetheart deal by limiting impact-fee increases to 3% after July 1.

Last time the developer had T&D and other contractors fill the parking lot with big trucks and construction trailers, so there was no place for cars to park.

It will be immediate and on your next tax bill.

Yes, true. But the need for additional facilities each year is increasing the staffing, payroll, pension and all the other costs subject to inflation each year. I support the Fire Department and Emergency Services 200%, but the growth of the Villages also means the growth of the Department and additional costs, plus inflation.

I can answer two of your questions. First, from the Lake County web site, the Fire Protection assessment in Lake County is $206.00 per house per year.

Second, we have lived in The Villages for five years. The maximum cap on the Fire Assessment in The Villages in Sumter County has remained at $125 for the five years. I do not know how many years before that. Our annual Fire Assessment has remained at $124 for each of the tax years. So no increase in the max or the actual assessment for at least five years, maybe more. We all know costs have risen in those five years.

Totally agree. It’s late in the game and that 25% ship has sailed. Perhaps tough but thoughtful negotiations can recoup a little. However coming up with a long term strategy that offers protection to all parties is a must. Name calling and threatening will only make things worse.

Our annual Fire Assessment has remained at $124 for each of the tax years. So no increase in the max or the actual assessment for at least five years, maybe more. We all know costs have risen in those five years.[/QUOTE]

Everything has risen in cost except the developers impact fees. The impact fees should be paying for the new firehouses and roads due to new developments.

Why should the developer have to pay anything for fire protection? The FD exists to protect the home owners property so it is the obligation of the owners to pay for it.

Don't your taxes cover fire dept. and police. What you are say makes it a problem
 

Pease tell me what's the tax difference is between homes that lie outside of the villages and the one's that lie in the villages.

The developer doesn't actually pay anything. Sure, they might foot the bill while during construction but the cost of the impact fee is passed along to the buyer the same as the cost of lumber and bathroom fixtures.

Assessing impact fees on new construction is a way of making the property owners pay for the additional infrastructure needed to support their homes and businesses.

This issue should have been decided by the last Commissioner election.

The voters overwhelmingly decided that the Developer should pay for the infrastructure (which would include fire stations, trucks, and other equipment) necessitated by his massive expansion of The Villages. In many other counties, he would have to do so, but not here-- thanks to his puppets who formerly controlled the County Commission.

Obviously, he should not pay for fire services to the existing community, and nobody is suggesting he do so.

Since you stated this I assume you know what counties......which ones?

Do the math.
 

Ok, so unless I'm missing something here. There are 74,242 homes in Sumter co. as of July 2019. There were 1609 businesses that were employer establishments. There was a total of 7,013 non employee businesses. Let's just look at home max tax increases. I see this as a Max tax increase of 288%. 74,242 homes X $235 each home. =$17,464,870. That's without assessments on the businesses. So sorry for asking but What the Heck? Where does the developer or the county pay for any of the new fire stations or EMTs? 25% here, 288% there? It seems to me we paid for our fire stations and EMTs already in our bond. What am I missing? Even at $50,000 wage for firemen that's 349 new firemen. Or that's 26 new fire trucks at $660,000 per truck. Or 17 new fire stations at a million dollars each. So What are they asking for here? I think they need to do some explaining.

I will name one off the top of my head for you. In North Collier County, the Developer would pay a fire-impact fee of $476/house if the house is less than 4,000 sq. ft. If => than 4,000 square feet, it would be $833/ house. In Sumter County, of course, he pays a fire-impact fee of zero. If you are curious about other counties, Google the county's name and impact fees.

Tax raise of 3 X previous !
 

Same here, who gets up the nerve to make a raise of 300% ? ? This is nonsense, something else has to be going on here ???

Right, there is a lot of explaining that needs to be done !

What difference does it make . They make promises and don’t stick by it. Isn’t that politician ??!

Yes, but so many voters fell for it (without thinking if a 25% increase could be reversed) and now reality is setting in. :1rotfl:

Many can not afford this, I don't understand how this can be justified? And what can we the people do to stop this?

The commissioners may have to make a difficult choice IF the reason for the increase is that the cost of providing excellent fire protection coverage has risen above the level of the current fire protection fee assessment limit. Wages, insurance, equipment, training, maintenance, supplies, utility costs may have risen to where the current assessment does not cover those costs for the Fire Department. Therefore their choice is to either raise the assessment fee to continue excellent fire protection coverage, or to reduce fire protection coverage by eliminating fire department personnel, equipment, fire stations, EMT response, etc. There has not been an increase in the current fire protection assessment fee in years. Tough choice.

We currently pay home owners insurance premiums partially based on the excellent coverage score for fire protection in The Village/Sumter County. We are rated category 2 which is the second highest possible rating. If the category slips below 2, we will pay even higher home owner premiums. So we are going to pay one way or another.

I disagree. They adopted a position that they would do due diligence and take the issue off the table in July. Then, without doing said due diligence, they decided they must "stick it" to TV by going ahead with their tax increase on June 30th. There have been plenty of discussions in other threads about the false premise these 3 are operating from. Fiduciary Responsibility is a legal term. It requires those in power to be mindful and to work in the best interests of the taxpayers. There are more taxpayers in Sumter County not in TV than in TV. Yet all these 3 seem to care about is the heck with anybody but us in TV. Total negligence.

You contradict yourself.

As a sage once said: "Never underestimate the ignorance of the American electorate."

The Commissioners were going about their day and suddenly out of the blue decided to change things? Are you honestly contending that nothing happened to affect their decision? Are you accusing them of improperly bringing a motion back for consideration?

"more taxpayers in Sumter County non in TV than in TV"? I seriously doubt that.

EDIT: It looks like it is close. Sumter County = 132,000. The Villages = 80,000. Approximately 15% outside Sumter County -> 68,000 in Sumter County. So pretty close to 50/50 split.

"the heck with anybody but us in TV" Yeah, I really hate it when people care about my needs, really ticks me off!

remember last time all the t and d trucks, they will bring in every truck they can and block us out

This is more than doubled, which is absurd!!

I’m confused. Some post are referencing impact fees and others are referring to the ad valorem tax. It’s apples and ranges

One of the new commissioners (who represents the swing vote) tried to buy time to explore adequate due diligence, unfortunately the time he tried to buy has been threatened to be taken away. As a result, the new commissioners were forced into having to expedite the time line, and now are being falsely accused of changing their minds. They are performing their fiduciary responsible to the residential taxpayers of Sumter County by expediting the process before the rules of the game very well might be changed.

If anyone should be called out, it is not the three new Commissioners, it is those who try to change the rules if they don’t like the way the game is playing out.

Why even talk
 

It's interesting to me at any politician even talks to a developer for negotiations. He's up to the politician to look at the facts understand what voters elected them to do and then go ahead and do it to the best of their ability. It seems easy enough to me to raise the infrastructure taxes to a fair reasonable amount similar to the counties around as far as competition for building and capital monies

Logic is not allowed on ToTV.

EMS. Right on
 

We the small people voted them in and they are representing us. Why should the older houses have to pay for our roads and the new ones also. This place is already way overcrowded

Opinion they are doing this so we can be like NewYork and that lovable place Portland
Enjoy the ride it’s coming to TV

So many NIMBY comments here ( not in my back yard). And a lot of lack of caring about the greater good. More like, "I got mine so shut the door."

Yes, the Troika quickly panicked after the legislature indicated they were passing a tax increase limits bill. After all, since they apparently never intended to do any due diligence on this no need to wait until July. Beware the Law Of Unintended Consequences.

One of my favorites.........Sage Dressing. :icon_hungry: