County Maintains Tax Rate for Next Year

As a full moon rose in the east, Sarasota County Commissioners took public comment and then held the first of two votes to finalize their $870 million fiscal year 2012 budget. A second and final public hearing and vote will occur in Venice on Sept. 26.

As property values continue to slide, commissioners voted to retain the existing millage rate. Property tax collections will be less than eight years ago (before the real-estate boom got underway) and are anticipated to drop further over the next three years.

County commissioners will dip into their reserves again to balance their FY 12 budget. They’ll use $33 million of reserves, and plan to do it again next year for the FY 13 spending plan. The reserves were built up during the boom times, but were tapped for the past three years. The reserves, according to county financial documents presented earlier this month at a budget workshop, will be insufficient to cover expenses by FY 15.

For all the current talk about taxes, public comment concerned two narrow topics. Jack Rienks was concerned about a five percent charge on his assessment for a canal-dredging project. Kate Lowman urged commissioners not to kill the inter-library loan system. “Our libraries cannot buy every book,” she said. “Hard times are the last times this resource should be lost.”

Staff was directed to help Rienks. Lowman’s request fell on deaf ears. And that was it. Two public speakers on an $870 million budget. The audience was primarily senior county staffers, standing ready to explain the public’s questions, which never arose. 

Budgets are about winners and losers. But in this case, winners were few. Among elected officials, the supervisor of elections budget will jump $772,945 next year for the presidential election. Thanks to an earlier hike in the bed-tax rate, tourist development is up nearly $750,000. 

Surprisingly, the office of financial planning — — shows a jump of $3,291,606 in its budget to $69,825,888. It’s the fourth-largest budget category after utilities, the sheriff’s office and public safety. The jump is due to a change in pension accounting.

Every other department was down. The sheriff, tax collector, state attorney, county attorney, health and human services, utilities, planning, public works, libraries — all will make do with less next year. 

In years past, county commission chambers were packed with speakers for the annual budget public hearing. They spoke for hours and hours. With average property tax bills approaching the level of a decade ago, citizens — by their absence Monday night — seem content.