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Click here to read "Truth in Taxes (The Spin Stops Here)" Data from the the Town Manager's 2006-07 Recommended Budget reveal that, even after adjusting for tax-base increases
that can be attributed to new construction and after making ample allowance for inflation, the taxable assessments for 2006
were more than 75 percent higher than in 2001. By adding to taxes that would
be generated from that tax base by the current 4.70 millage rate the expenses transferred since 2001 from ad valorem taxes
to the two special assessments (in apparent violation of appeals-court and Florida Supreme Court rulings), there emerges
a potential tax-plus-assessment increase in real terms of over 110 percent unless millage were reduced and/or the
two special assessments converted to ad valorem funding.
Before the Sept. 2006 budget hearings I made a much more extensive analysis of property-tax increases from 2001 to 2006,
a link to which is is here.
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Click here to see a statistical analysis of 2001-2006 Tax Increases During the run-up to the September 2005 town budget hearings we prepared a
4-part study of that particular budget cycle we called "Tax Time Again." Part I explained how the former Town Manager
included several items in his 2005-06 recommended budget which appeared to support policies of the mayor and
some commissioners by anticipating a huge legal liability as a result of a voters' referendum initiative. Part II describes a game that has been played every year during several years of
rapidly rising property values and assessments, to give the impression that commissioners were exercising fiscal austerity
simply by rejecting the Town Manager's proposed millage increases and holding town millage at 4.7 mills, which actually resulted
in huge tax increases for property owners. It also explains how the burden was further increased by funding some
items by special assessments, and by bank loans, thus adding a debt-service burden to future-year budgets. Part III deals more particularly with the special assessments, which appear to
be in contravention of Click on the links below to read any of the four parts of "Truth in Taxes."
Although one justification for concluding the bank loans was to complete sanitary-sewer and storm-drain construction
much sooner than if they were funded by actual surplusses as those were realized, that is not what happened Read the
full extensive analysis at the following link.
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