The 'nightmare' of Amendment One

As time draws near for millage rate to be established in Santa Rosa County Amendment One could mislead many residents into counting dollars they will not get to keep.

The reason for these fewer dollars after voting a tax break is the mathematical nightmare the new law has created.

“Calculating everything this year was a little more complicated this year with all the amendments,” said Santa Rosa County Property Appraiser Greg Brown. “This year has been a huge task because of all of the unknowns and variables in relation to the school and county.

“There have been a lot of calculations with the widows exemption, the veterans exemption, and the three percent CPI on all property from the Sarver-Holmes Amendment, which is done every year.”

For Santa Rosa County Brown reported there would be a reduction on the tax rolls of roughly $600-million due to the passing of Amendment One, but those dollars did not get cut from the tax base of the Santa Rosa County School System.

“Santa Rosa County Schools is 53% of the tax burden in Santa Rosa County, while the county is 47%, which is quite a complication,” said Brown. “I feel a lot of people are going to blame me when they don’t see as much savings as they expected with Amendment One, but I am just applying what the law says.”

Amendment One and the additional $25,000 deduction citizens passed in January only applies to the county government portion of your tax bill, not the schools.

So if you own a home assessed at $100,000 last year with the three percent CPI it will increase to $103,000. The county will tax that home based on a $53,000 value after your homestead exemption and the added $25,000 exemption, while the school board would be taxing you at $78,000.

For the Santa Rosa County Commissioners they knew the news this year would not be good, but they are looking to honor the wishes of their residents.

The millage rate for the last two budget cycles has been 6.0953 mills and it looks like it could stay that way for a third year, despite what the 2007 Special Legislative Session in Florida allows the county to do.

“I support us staying at the current millage rate as we have had this year and the year before that,” said Commissioner Tom Stewart. “Last year because of this we lost $2-million in revenue not counting the fact we did not budget for inflation and the increase in fuel cost.

“This year we will lose another $5.4-million roughly and that doesn’t include the cut we could take in state shared revenue, or the losses we take due to inflation.”

According to Brown’s office for the county to maintain their funding from the citizens the millage rate could be raised to 6.7 mills, and a full funding roll up allowed by the legislature would allow it to be set at 6.98209 mills, but none of the county commissioners who could be reached seemed interested in going above the current millage rate.

For the 2007-08 Fiscal Year the County set its budget at $115,735,440. This next budget is expected to be much less and that will end up taking away more services residents are use to.

“Everyone will have to understand there will be drastic reductions in ways government has performed in the past,” said Commissioner Don Salter. “Everything will have to slow down when it comes to inspections, code compliance and enforcement, Planning and Zoning, approval of new projects, and more.

“People will have to evaluate their government while adapting to the cuts we had to make.”

Santa Rosa County has already started to make the move towards this day, which many commissioners saw coming.

“We are currently staffed in the county at rates before Hurricane Ivan,” said Stewart. “We have lost 78 employees in the last two years, but at the same time are better prepared as a county than we were when we were hit by those two devastating hurricanes.

“The systems are in place, the only things we would have to do is get the personnel on board to help us in case of another emergency.”

When asked where the biggest cut would occur in the upcoming budget process the answer came back as services.

“A lot of the external agencies we were funding at higher levels will take drastic hits,” said Salter. “And many of these agencies provide vital care for many of our less fortunate citizens.

“I think with the drastic cuts already in place and those continuing it should show our citizens we were doing a pretty good job prior to these cuts.”

Stewart noted the big problem lies ahead for Santa Rosa County.

“We cannot continue to maintain the same level of service while reducing the budget,” said Stewart. “At some point it is going to catch up with us and when it does it will be devastating.”