A friend of mine sent the following email to County Commissioner and received a response that also follows.
Mr. Burgress,
Put the tax burden on existing home owners is repugnant. We in The Villages will NOT Tolerate this terrible rate increase.
I moved to Sumter in part due to lower taxes.
Your proposed tax rate increase of 25% in one year is extraordinary and unnecessary. This type of rate increase will cause a great political impact on you, government and the developer. We Villagers are not stupid!
Worst of all this is lapse of trust in Government. We have taxation without representation.
I suggest you re-think your solution to the County’s financial issues.[/B][/COLOR]
Mr. Burgess response:
Thank you for your e-mail regarding the 2019-2020 Sumter County Budget and tentative tax increase.
The BOCC Budget stretches over all areas of our growing County and requires increased expenditures.
Improving and maintaining our County’s transportation infrastructure is a major priority in this year’s Budget. The time is right to make a big investment in our major roads. One specific example is our dedication of $12 million dollars toward the resurfacing of two of our County’s busiest roadways – Buena Vista Blvd. and Morse Blvd.
An equally important priority for this year is further enhancement of school safety and increased support for our Sheriff’s Department. In light of the Parkland shooting, the State of Florida has passed new laws that require us as County taxpayers to make increased payments for school safety. This Budget will be investing in that security with additional trained officers and the hardening of every school campus.
These priorities are a big commitment in Sumter County’s present and future….and will require our first tax increase since 2004. Fourteen straight years of tax decreases have served our citizens well and demonstrated our commitment to wise and frugal spending. Even with this year’s increase, we remain a relatively low tax county, strategically positioned for future success. The steps we are taking now will enable us to keep future taxes low, service levels high and our citizens safe.
Thank you for your interest in our County Budget. Attached are the budget workshop documents in the following link:
Agenda - 07/11/2019
Don Burgess
Commissioner
Sumter County
Looking at the exchange the takeaway is this:
My friend got an expected response for basically getting in Mr. Burgess' face and yelling at him, "thank you, next question please". Had he asked pointed and specific questions about the proposed budget the responses would have much likely been different. The response was obviously an canned response that was prepared in advance to respond to such email. As a District Supervisor I would have responded to the email in a similar manner to such rantings as anything else would service no purpose as it would be falling on deaf ears and a closed mind.
If similar statements are made at the meeting next Tuesday at the meeting at the Colony Rec Center, similar responses, if any, will be received and absolutely nothing will be accomplished.
To get specific answers then the questions need to be specific, direct, factual,
answerable, void of emotion, and have to put them on the spot to answer with a response that will justify to the majority that this, or any other, increase is justified.
If you plan to ask questions at the meeting they should be as described above and you should do adequate research to ensure the answers have not already been asked. Statements such as "I'm on a fixed income" are both irrelevant and not a part of the issue. If your questions are making them squirm sweat, stumble over their answers, or resort to canned answers then the issue needs to be pressed until adequate answers are received.
Specific to Mr. Burgess' response:
Past tax increases, or lack there of, are irrelevant to the subject at hand.
The school funding issues avoids the issue that the combined state and local school taxes levied on each home in Sumter county is 5.507 millage points, or $1652 annually for a $300,000 assessable home. The 2300 homes added by The Villages last year accounted for approximal $3,800,000 added school taxes and exactly 0 student population increase (far below the national, state, and local averages). Why is this not adequate to fund these additional costs?
The new roads needed is already address by road impact fees charged by the county and the new home impact fee of $2600 per home that is charged. The new home impact fee for 2300 home is nearly $6,000,000, why was this not applied to the roads being built? The impact fee is also supposed to pay for added infrastructure, parks, schools, jails, etc. most of this is not applicable to the funds collected for development here in the villages, school are obvious-zero impact, parks and infrastructure we pay for with our bonds, maintenance assessments, and monthly amenity fee, the county is off the hook for these. There should be more than enough to address the roads.
Using the resurfacing of Morse and Buena Vista as a justification for increased taxes is disingenuous and lacks merit, did they raise taxes last year to cover the cost of resurfacing the other roads that were accomplished throughout the county? If we pay it this year, it's a one time expense, what happens to the money next year, will we see a tax decrease? Not likely. Why was there no planning to address these roads in previous year's budgets, it was no surprise that these would be needing resurfacing as these are, in Mr. Burgess' words "...two of the County's busiest roadways...".
The claim that the county is growing and requires increased expenditures does not mix well with the higher than average tax base provided by The Villages and the lower than average service requirements. Remember half our population is not here half the year and we're not exactly a haven for crime require extraordinary police coverage.
The impact fees, tax base increase, and school tax increases have occurred for may years now and will continue at a similar rate for the foreseeable future.
The statement that even though we are getting a tax increase we're still one of the lowest tax rates is laughable. We're going to put the screws to you this year, but you should like it because other people are getting it worse than you. Really?
I'll see you all at next week's meeting.
Here are my sources for the information on the impact fees.
Road Impact Fee Schedules | Sumter County, FL - Official Website
Sumter County, FL - Official Website