Fiscal Rangers

CRA Update - California Shut them Down, Broward County FL stops funding them, and what will Lake County Do?

Tavares, FL April 1, 2014 No, this is not an actual book, but it could be... In 2011, California Gov. Jerry Brown shut down all CRAs and took their funds. Now they are trying to create new ways in California to replace the CRA’s (Community Redevelopment Agencies) which were never approved by voters, and nothing seems to work yet. http://www.publicceo.com/2014/03/will-california-ever-replace-the-hole-left-by-its-redevelopment-agencies/ Meanwhile, here in Lake County, FL, it will be interesting to see what happens with CRA’s in Lake County. Voters never approved any of them in Lake County. Instead, they were implemented by a legal process where local cities had to prove there was "blight" and no local votes took place. Lake County takes more than $1-million from their general funds and send it to the 15+ CRA’s in Lake County. All are run by cities except the new one in Sorrento run by the Lake County Board, which has no funds due yet to that CRA. Attached here is the recently issued annual report of the Lake County run CRA in the Sorrento area: Download 2014-03-25 BCC CRA Plan - 69pgs My previous article on Broward County, FL deciding to stop contributions to CRA’s is here: http://webworks.typepad.com/lakecountyfiscalrangers/2014/01/broward-county-fl-decides-to-stop-contributions-to-cras.html And here... Read more →

Broward County, FL Decides to Stop Contributions to CRAs

Tavares, FL - Jan. 16, 2014 Most cities in Lake County have CRAs which set aside future property tax revenues to use to “redevelop” blighted downtown areas in specific “zones”. Projects might include repair of old sidewalks, painting and fixing exterior fronts of old retail buildings, and other projects to improve the attractiveness of the downtown area. Note: The book cover at the left is NOT a real book, but who knows, someday. The hitch is that part of the CRA revenues come out of County property taxes, not just city tax shares. For instance, if you look at the Lake County budget, you will find they pay out over a million dollars to CRAs in the County. That money comes right out of COUNTY property taxes but goes towards CITY CRA projects. So the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida just reported that Broward County, FL Commissioners got fed up with those tax losses and will stop approving any extensions of expiring CRAs by cities that use County Tax funds. The Commissioners want to use the funds for their own projects. Broward County has much higher tax collections than Lake County, so the numbers are much larger. Cities in Broward County... Read more →

Are the Minneola, FL City Council AND Local Land Developers Trying to Rip Off Local Taxpayers?

Tavares, FL - Monday, March 25,2013 Commentary by Vance Jochim, www.FiscalRangers.com - Updates are added, mostly at the bottom, as we get them. This is written from the standpoint of being a taxpayer advocate, and also questioning why a city should be allowed to divert County property tax revenue to their own projects. Lake County, FL property owners and City of Minneola property owners better hold on to their wallet because in my opinion, a tax grab is being planned to subsidize four major real estate developers in the Minneola area. Basically, they are pushing through a Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) which siphons property taxes from the development area future property taxes to re-pay the State of Florida $15-million of a $30-million Florida Turnpike Interchange in Minneola. The Interchange is expected to increase the ability of land owners and developers to sell 8,000 homes in Minneola with 23,000 residents. However, ALL County taxpayers will be expected to provide normal County services like Animal Services, Libraries etc. to those new homeowners while 5-mills of County property taxes are used to pay their bonds instead of going to the Lake County General Fund for normal government services to County (not City) residents.... Read more →