The Lake County Board will Start the Process to Hike your Property Taxes 18% or MORE tomorrow, unless you tell them your opinion

Tavares, FL     -  July 21, 2014

Call for Action:
If you are concerned about the County raising your property taxes up to 18%
or more, you should be at the first approval meeting which is tomorrow,
Tuesday, July 22 at 9am. It is the first of three meetings where the Lake
County Board of Commissioners start the process to approve property tax
millage rates by 18% or MORE. Tomorrow, they will set the maximum millage
rate increase which will be on your property tax TRIM notice. The actual
millage rate could be set lower at two future meetings.

In my opinion, County Chairman Jimmie Conner is requesting all parties to
pile on with budget requests to build up a big pot of "needs", then scale it
back to maybe 5-8% and look like a hero. So the problem is not only the
millage rate, but which services will be funded. So you need to provide
input on both.

Here are some recent Daily Commercial articles by Livi Stanford on the budget “needs” – notice they mostly talk to officials or staff who want to raise taxes, and rarely talk to taxpayer advocates about reasons to cut costs to match revenues or NOT to raise taxes.  The articles basically accept the “facts” provided by staff and officials.   Jan. 30, 2014 “ Lake faces budget woes”  <   at this meeting, the County only had an upcoming $7-million budget shortfall Feb. 2, 2014 – “Sheriff proposes $3-million budget increase”   <<<  That is almost 6% .   We know his employees have not had raises in several years and they work hard.  But the issue is that in my experience, there could be $3-million in existing projects that could be cut to pay for wage increases.   The Sheriff has never had public hearings, or published his detailed budget online for the last five years, or ever had a performance audit by the County Inspector General.   Shouldn’t that be agreed to within the next six months before approving any budget increase? Feb. 21, 2014 “Lake EMS budget unknowns”   <<  The dept claims a $1-million budget shortfall.  I call that spending in excess of revenue.  Staff says usage is down, so billings are down.   To me it seems they should reduce their budget to match the new, lower income. April 12 & 24, 2014 – “Tax increases could become part of budget solution”  <<<   Lake County Commissioner Welton “Cadwell said the county’s past practice of tapping into reserves to balance the budget is not a viable option anymore.  The only other way is to create additional revenues,” he said.   <<< What about reducing costs to live within revenues???  Why isn’t that discussed? May 1, 2014 – “Budget shortfall may hurt parks” June 9, 2014 – “Lake EMS faces $1M budget shortfall”   <<<   Yup, one more in a series about how EMS is losing revenues, but won’t live within the new revenue levels. June 25, 2014 -  “County officials ponder tax increase to make up huge budget deficit”  <<<  This is the first “the budget sky is falling” article describing how property tax millage rates will have to be raised 18% to pay for all the requested budget hikes, including 3% wage increases and an increase in the Sheriff’s budget of $3.6-million (or about 6%).  Another factor is the County is losing a grant for 12 firefighters, but rather than reduce staffing, now want local taxpayers to pay for it.  In contrast, when the School District gets grant positions, then end them when the grant funding ends.   That is why you don’t want grants, because they always end up continuing with local tax funds. July 2, 2014 – “Lake County libraries in crosshairs as budget forces tough choices”  -  <<< now the libraries get news coverage.  In this case, they aren’t pleading for MORE money, but staff is saying how they will be cut if they don’t get the 18% millage tax increase.  Most of this is because the Sheriff and other increases will reduce existing County operations funds, causing cuts in programs like libraries.   So, the Sheriff will be taking funds from the Libraries since his budget increase is being pushed by Jimmie Conner.  July 9, 2014 – “EMS-backed budget request could raise taxes”   <<<   Yup, 3% wage increases and the total budget increase request of $1.6 million (in Feb., above, it was $1-million wanted) increase or about 10% of the EMS budget.   A lot of this is to pay for expenses because their revenues are dropping.  Rather than live within the lower billing revenues from patients, they want taxpayers to increase subsidies for EMS. July 11, 2014 – “Fuel spill cleanup costing the county $490,000”    <<<<  This surprise environmental remediation cost for a fuel spill in a County Astatula fueling station is one of the reasons why Commissioners are asking for budget increases.   They have know about this for years, since 1992, and it is a legitimate cost problem.    You might call this an unfunded mandate, so it uses up budget dollars.  But, they have known about it for years, and could have been setting funds aside as a reserve, but did not.  Finally, according to the article, Florida State ranks this as a very low threat to drinking water, so it could be deferred again. July 14, 2014 -  “County fleet vehicles aging, in need of replacement”  <<<  This was based upon a presentation by the fleet management staff.  I have audited fleet operations in several larger firms, and none of the staff data I saw was based upon professional metrics.   You don’t justify the purchase of a new $40,000 or $80,000 vehicle based upon repair costs, but on life cycle costs which is the TOTAL cost of the vehicle including annual depreciation, insurance, repairs, etc, AND total cost per mile.   They don’t even repair or maintain vehicles at night to eliminate pulling them off daytime duty.    July 20, 2014 -  “Commissioners differ on budget priorities”  <<<  This is the most recent article, quoting mostly Commissioners about the 18% proposed budget increase.   I posted TWO comments on the Daily Commercial website about this article and they did not publish them. Finally, if you want to see the staff budget documents for the new proposals, go HERE.

Don't let Board Chair Jimmie Conner fool you - In my opinion there are a lot
of questionable smokescreen items or unjustified items in the budget
proposal

If you don't think tax increases of 18% or more are warranted, you need to
email the County Board, phone them or give public input at the meeting
(details below).

There are two legitimate reasons why some increased taxes are needed:

- County staff have not received a wage increase in several years.
Most government agencies are asking for a 3% wage increase. I got 1% in
social security increases, so what is fair? You need to speak up. Probably
the 3% is fair since they haven't received anything in years.

- The County has had shortfalls for the last 3+ years, but were
subsidizing the shortfalls by draining the cash reserves. Now they are
down to a required cash reserve of 7% and no other cash reserves to offset
shortfalls. If you think that services should be at the same prior years,
it will require a tax increase to replace the lack of reserves. My wild
estimate for a justified millage increase is 5-6% since the budget
presentations have not been formatted in a manner to segment the requests by
justified and somewhat justified and not justified. That does not include
funds for the Sheriff - see below for conditions for that approval.

I disagree with approval of the Sheriff's budget increase due to the reasons
cited below.
Some people think the Sheriff's budget should go up $3.2-million or about
5.6% to pay for wages and other "needs". However, he has never had public
hearings for his proposed $60-million budget. He has never had any
performance audits to ensure operations are not fat. He does not publish
detailed budgets online for the last five years. The County, the School
District do all three, but why not the Constitutional Officers or Sheriff?
Shouldn't the County Board require them before approving budget hikes for
the Sheriff? I think so.

Call for Action
If you don't act, you just might get a property tax hike of 18% or MORE.
On Tuesday, the Board will set the maximum millage rate that can be later
approved at two public hearings. If you have reasons why the tax increase
should be lower, you need to inform commissioners by email or phone, or
provide public input at the 9am Board meeting tomorrow.

You can get the Board members contact information here:

http://www.lakecountyfl.gov/departments/commissioners/

Click their name in the left column to get their phone and
email details.

The Board meeting starts at 9am in the round County Administration building
at 315 West Main St., Tavares, and usually the Sheriff deputies and
Firefighters show up and take many seats. So get there early if you want a
seat with a good view, then fill out a public input card and give it to the
court clerk so you will be called. Enter the subject as Tab 30, "Discussion
on setting millage rates". They already have had budget presentations
(see links above), so this might just be setting the millage rate, which is
what you want to comment on.

The agenda item description is:

"Discuss and  set millage rates to be included on TRIM notifications. Approve public
hearing dates and times for September 9, 2014 @ 5:05 p.m. and September 23,
2014 @ 5:05 p.m., and approval to advertise these public hearings. There is
no fiscal impact." <<< Ignore the statement about "no fiscal impact".
That is not correct in my opinion. Any millage increase over ZERO will
increase YOUR taxes.

Vance Jochim