Budget proposal will hike taxes

By Steve Estes

As Keys’ property values continue to fall, Monroe County has proposed a tax rate that will still mean an increase for most residential property.

County Administrator Roman Gastesi rolled out a budget proposal for fiscal 2011 Tuesday afternoon that calls for a 4.4806 millage rate, some 18.6 percent above the rate for the current year and 3.6 percent over the rollback rate. Rollback is the tax rate at which government collects the same amount of taxes as last year.

Once the county has set a maximum millage, it cannot increase that amount, but can decrease it before the budget is adopted in late September.

With the new proposal, Gastesi plans to spend about $60,000 more this year than last year overall, with a much more sizeable increase in the general fund budget.

He said that a need to replenish reserve levels for the fire and rescue services resulted in the need for a higher tax rate this year, but he has also built in a three percent raise for county employees which will cost taxpayers about $675,000.

It’s the last proposal that threw up red flags for commissioners during Tuesday’s initial budget hearing.

“Our people deserve raises,” said Commissioner Mario DiGennaro. “But in today’s economy I can’t support a budget that raises taxes.”

If the new millage is adopted by the commission, a home with an appraised value of $300,000 would pay about $1,344 in county taxes this year. The same home last year would have paid $1,133.

As has occurred the last two years, it is the homesteaded properties that will absorb higher percentages of the increase than second homes and commercial property. Those homes have been protected by the three percent cap of the Save Our Homes legislation, limiting their tax increase to that amount. Many of those homes, however, still haven’t reached the upper limits of the appraisal on the property, meaning they will absorb the entire three percent this year.

Though she admitted that county employees have gone without raises for three years, Commissioner Kim Wigington said she would not vote for a budget that included those raises.

“Every dollar we spend is another dollar the taxpayer has to give to us,” said Wigington.

Commissioner George Neugent said the county must prepare for another drop in state spending locally with a large projected shortfall at the state level and the potential effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico still unclear.

“The state budget is a house of cards. We don’t know,” said Neugent. “But if you drive down US 1 and see the closed storefronts you know our business community is still hurting.”

Gastesi’s budget proposal, which will get another look next Thurday, maintains current levels of service in all areas, he says, including level funding for non-profit agencies the county helps to sponsor.

It includes enhancements for fire rescue services and maintains library funding and hours.

“There are efficiencies we could realize that get us under rollback if you wish,” said Budget Director Tina Boan.

“If there are efficiencies we can get right now, we need to take a look at those,” said Commissioner Heather Carruthers. “We might need them to cover raises for the constitutional officers.”

She is concerned that if the county hands out raises, the constitutional officers, all of whom are funded by county coffers to a large extent, will ask the county to pick up raises for their employees.

County Clerk Danny Kolhage said he is banned by state statute from giving his employees raises from state funds, but would like to see those raises.

Problem is–that increase would have to come from the county’s pockets.

Wigington said one of her problems with the proposal is that the county anticipates keeping reduced service levels from pervious years but adding costs in other areas instead of ramping services back up with the money.

“We must be as conservative this year as we have been the last two,” she said.

For the last two years, county officials have been struggling to maintain services while rebuilding reserves depleted during the former commission’s tenure.

A large chunk of last year’s tax dollars went to completing the replenishment of reserve accounts, with a much smaller chunk this year going for that purpose.

“There are items we can take out of the budget,” said Gastesi. “For example, we have $60,000 budgeted to paint the Gato building. We can do without that, but eventually we have to do it or face more work later.”

“Even if we make roll back rate, it is really a roll up budget because we have to increase tax rates to realize the same amount of money,” said Neugent. “I want to be under roll back.”

He said he is concerned with the middle-income families that make $40,000 to $50,000 per year and the effect this increase will have on their disposable income.

“The proposed raises didn’t really sit well with me. There is no doubt our employees do a great job and they are stretched thin. What we have to be careful of is that we hand out merit raises and then longevity raises, and soon we are paying people well beyond what the job actually commands in the public sector elsewhere,” said Neugent. “We have to work now to establish a cap on certain jobs so that we aren’t handing out money above what the job could command.”