Property tax reform Amendment 3 impacts and education
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What are we moving? We made it close. What are we moving, Jack?
So part of the reason I wanted to have this discussion was, you know, this is obviously a big, big thing for this for the not only for the state, but our our county. Um and I wanted the details to come out so the public could actually see it, hear it, get educated, and as they make their judgments, they'll know what's best.
You know, there's there's articles that are out there, one's Newsweek says why property tax is bad for renters. Uh the judge recently struck down was proposed as misleading and now they're redrafting uh how it's gonna be listed for the uh j uh for the for the for the ballot. Um So with all that said I just think that's important that we get this information out. So Dan if you would?
Yes, good afternoon, Commissioner. Dan Rosala, Assistant Budget Director. As the Commissioner stated, uh we have information here about educating the public on property taxes. Uh we've also included an analysis we put together for commissioners to understand amendment three. And just a friendly reminder that the data you're going to see is based on FY26 adopted data since we're still Working on FY twenty seven.
Okay, if you looked on the left uh slide there, uh to the slide uh number one which says dollar distribution, you'll see that of every dollar of property taxes paid, sixty cents goes to the county, thirty-eight cents to the school district, a penny to mosquito control, and a penny of Swift Mud to Swift Mud, excuse me. On the right, that shows that of the 60 cents collected for the county, we have 44 cents goes to the general operating, 13 cents to
the fire MSTU. Again, this is 26 data, so it's not the fire and rescue MSTU, just fire. Two cents to the Road Rehabilitation Services MSTU and a penny to general obligation bonds.
And here's a further further breakdown of how the 44 of the 60 cents is allocated to the different departments. If you see there the first two sheriff corrections and the second from the last rescue, that makes up 63% of the total, which is dedicated towards public safety.
Any questions so far?
Okay, you've seen it you've seen these slides before. Uh this is what has been distributed to all the commissioners. The budget director sent out an updated version yesterday. Uh just a friendly reminder that uh the longer that we have to sit with data, the more refined it can be. So we did some refining on that. Uh just moving through the table there, the first row, amendment number three, year one, that Pasco's anticipated year one impact. Is $96.1 million, or 22% loss of our property taxes received from general operating
millage. That's for the $150,000 first year exemption. Moving down to the next row. Amendment number three, your two. Has goes. Um excuse me. Pasco's total general fund budget is 567 million, excluding reserves and fire rescue. So we would need to reduce by $96.1 million in year one to absorb the lost revenue. However, the total amount of total non-mandated or core services. Is $93.3
million. This will result in an additional $2.8 million to absorb somehow. And examples of those core and mandated services include $197 million for the sheriff, $85 million to run the detention center, and $9 million for 911 call technical services.
Are you supposed to be on this slide or another slide?
I'm still on the same slide.
We're going through the first year, Amendment One Impacts. So moving on to year two, which is the two hundred fifty thousand dollar exemption. This loss of revenue increases significantly with the impact being $156.3 million or 36% loss in revenue for the general fund. This would result in an additional $63 million to absorb above the core mandated services. And at full implementation, the revenue loss is $215.8 million or 51%. Once
the revenue loss reaches 19%, which is in year one, the impact is greater than the total cost of non-core mandated services in the general fund.
What does it say your percents here?
It doesn't.
Well I think it's a good thing.
I I don't have them, sorry.
We can get that together.
These can be refined, Commissioner. I think Mr. Rosal is just giving you a flavor for what what those additional cuts could could represent. Part of the discussion today is
I mean fifty-one percent.
That
that would
be with full implementation, which would be full elimination of uh property tax is what he's referring to.
It's a two percent cut, they can absorb that. Amendment three.
Yes. Amendment three has language in it that says that the legislature will build a path towards full elimination.
But even the first year it's twenty-two percent if I heard that right.
Correct.
Not two percent. They left off the other two.
Okay, then moving on to what the impact is to the other municipal service taxing units. So the fire rescue MSTU first year would be twenty-seven point one million dollars or twenty-three percent. Year two is forty-four point two million dollars or thirty-seven percent.
Mr. Chairman Mariano? Yes, Commissioner. Okay, a question on this one, because if you go back
People say well they they're holding first responders harmless. But that's not correct. That we can't take right, this is what I'm reading that other people are saying. They have to fund the first responders at the same level. But this shows you
Yeah, I think that was a conversation that the courts had considered as part of the ballot language. You recall it it says that property taxes may be spent on those types of things, and so that was the confusing part that I think the court ruled on, is that they may be spent on, for example, fire. Yes, they can, but those are not they are not necessarily protected by the amendment.
Correct.
And then your MSU is our road rehabilitation MSTU. Year one is $4.1 or 23%. Year two is $8.1 million or 37%. And then the table below shows the uh MSTU cost per mile based on the maintenance type done to rejuvenate the service.
That's I have. So back to the before discussion.
Correct.
Just from the core services.
Correct. As we stated, we we gotta find the numbers.
The refined numbers now is two point eight million dollars in the whole.
That is for go back to your slide. Yeah. One more. Those are your mandated expense right, which are mandated under state law in some fashion, and your not mandated services are your other services. So your parks, for example. That is not a mandated, not a mandated service. So what what this represents is is when you look at the delta of the budget. Yeah. You could eliminate Every non-mandated service um out of the budget.
But you would still dig into your mandated services. That that that's what I'm saying.
I don't get I I don't really understand that from this.
Well
it it didn't I think
why we're having the discussion is to get the board's temperament on on materials and education materials if you want to see those types of things. These are the numbers, these are strictly the facts and this is you know, what we is meant for educational purposes. They can obvio we can obviously do deeper dives um based on what the board would like to see. There's there's a hundred different ways I could split it.
And and now now that the nodes are more current it's to be very accurate, you're at two point eight million in the whole without funding anything. So everything else you're gonna have to take care of in other ways. Or f so that means fees gotta go up, millers gotta go up. Even to take care of this offset, millage is gonna go up too. Um next yeah. Next year's where for ninety sixty three minutes everything's handy. I mean this is absolutely
And Dan, what's the flavor? The flavor of the mandated services included public safety, but they also include court costs, they include other things.
Correct.
Those those are the big ones.
And those are the mandated ones? Yes, sir.
Oh so that's so you add those and it's you can it can choose. Okay.
So I mean this is something that I I I saw something with Tarpon Springs has got a um uh webpage out there. I think we need to get the truth out there, the facts that are out there, let's say. And I think we should do something along that line. Maybe bring something back to us in the next board meeting to show us what you've got. Um but I think we need to go Put that out as quick as you can anyway, just getting such a public and see what the effect is.
So I'd be happy to bring back some kind of demonstration of of uh a public education, for example, that could land maybe a la tarpin or or other example that's out there, and we could show the board some examples of what that education could look like and
Well I think I think it's good that you keep us going as to to what you're doing, but I don't want that to slow you down from doing it like tomorrow. To to put that information out there. So there's no need for you to hold back. If it's factual, we're allowed to put factual information out there, just put that out there. When you the next board meeting and show us what you've done, but I don't want to slow you down from doing it. Timing is very, very critical right now.
Commissioner Oakley.
I think a lot of a lot of citizens don't realize um how much you actually pay for things that actually help them fire and police and other things, but you take these kind of cuts It'd be good to know what those cuts are gonna do and see what's left. I mean are are you gonna be able to keep Fire going or you go out to shut it down or
there's a people. Yeah, there's a fine line there, Commissioner, of saying what a what the board would ultimately decide on. We can certainly show where the dollars are. Where those dollars go, and then of course then you know the voters can can make those assumptions as to where they are. You know, I mean we could we could explore revenue models, we could explore expense reductions. There's a there's a wide range of options. But if property tax reform were to pass in its current form, we would need to begin to have those discussions. One of the things that uh our budget team is doing is we've put together a
a uh fiscal and budget resilience. team that is that is looking at those options right now, what would that look like? You know, what do new revenue models look like? Because this would represent a fundamental shift in how to pay for services that our citizens have asked for.
We've always seen expenses go since COVID. You know, we've seen inflation at thirty and forty percent. I mean coming up on all all things that you use and buy and uh same with people and all these things have gone up. I'm not saying that. they're getting away with not having to pay much, but that it's expenses are going up on citizens too because you want good fire service, you want good police service and these other things. You want good public service for roads and things of that nature. But you can't
have those things. without having the money to be able to provide it. So
I also think it's important to say this is not a one size fits all uh effect on a county. And so I I had my staff blow this up. And I I put it on the stone core board. So this is done by FAC. And it shows um Estimated reduction in county property tax levy by fiscal year as a share of total county levy. Um and then this is an interactive QR code. I you know, I have my couple of my town hall things coming
up. I'm gonna have I'm gonna have Amy there at both of them. But I want them to see this. And so when you're a suburban county you are impacted much greater than a big urban cave. So it's it's gonna affect different counties differently. I was with an attor the county attorney from Union County. Um last week, which is somewhat Somewhere up in here and they said they're gonna have to merge. And they think they'll have to merge with three counties. if this
goes through. And they they they like have no idea how you even do that legislatively. I mean we have seen where counties have split Um like our county split from Hernando and Um Penales County used to be called West Hillsboro as as part of Hillsboro. I think my husband's great grandfather had a hand in splitting that but These counties up there are gonna have to merge. And um So I I got a map I had these maps made for all of you. Right here? This
is not a recyc these are not recycled. I cut mine up to make it smaller so it was more manageable and and so I just glued this on the bottom. But if you're out speaking or whatever, you can also get this in the email form. But I think this tells a a good story for Pasco County residents. I'm not talking about anyone else. But we are affected differently than other counties. Fernando and Citrus, along with us. Really, Hernandez just black. They're gonna get it bad. So, um Oh
that's right.
Well and I think you know our our people voted a long time ago with those Go Bonds to make sure they wanted to get fire EMS. And I think it was like four years ago we had this room filled with yellow people in yellow uniforms saying how they wanted to Get better backing from us so they can do better service for our people. And our our fire DMS team has done a phenomenal job. I think us adding the D shift on has been something where all of a sudden we're not looking to go hire people. They're coming to us. So instead of spending money, wasting money in training, training
as they leave to go somewhere else, they stay here. They live there, they raise their family so they get a better quality of life. and they're more energized to and able to be able to take better care of other people. When you look at the thing we did with the uh roads, you know, everyone was tired of those paving assessments. We found out how much money we were actually wasting. about three to one ratio was so much more efficient putting it into the taxes the way people wanted it and I think my people are happier. I think everybody still has more roads to get done and they see more more going to it, not less going to
it. But if you had to bring paving assessments back I mean that that that just brings us back to where we didn't want to go and people said they didn't want to go. And the last thing to look at is you look at the chart that Commissioner Starkey just showed, look at everybody up in the panhandle. There's at least three counties, four counties that are right there on the edge, and the sales tax do the offset of all this. T Florida tax watch side I don't know how accurate it is for right now, but had to go from six percent to fifteen percent. That's gonna take that whole panhill and bury it up and down. Because
they're all gonna they're a lot of them shop over the counter line now uh the state state line now. That's gonna just drive even more of that. I just don't see it being a a good idea for the state, but I think the best thing from everything with I see with the surveys that are out there, when people are what they call informed. The numbers are higher but when it the when when people are uninformed the numbers are higher but when people are actually informed of what what's gonna w the effects gonna be, the numbers plummet. Commissioner Oakley.
Well, part of the problem I see with the in the sales tax issue is the fact that If you're going up and up on sales tax, it affects everyone. Those that have plenty and those that have nothing. And it really affects that low. group of citizens. that were trying to give help on their property. So it kind of defeats the purpose. Do it one way, the other way. They're gonna spend all their money on taxes for food and everything else, so
You know, I I I wish they'd bring back something like that Century Commission where they actually brought it in where they put a committee together to go study the issues.
That happens next year.
Uh well and I know I know we s we even had one set up specifically for private and wastewater utilities that I sat on for years ago, put in a series of good recommendations, gave us gave everybody a lot of education that helped us solve a lot of our water problems. But I think this is an issue that should be looked at extensively. And there's ways to fix it. I mean I'll give you an example. My dad been in his condo for twenty-three years, bought it at a at a decent price. His taxes are like $116,000 a year. I mean hundred and sixteen dollars a year. They've probably
used EMS three times already this year. You take that alone, those people that are seniors living in those less expensive houses, if they just paid a little bit more into it, it'd be okay. And they'd probably be happy about it. Like my dad says, I pay more. to go through. But I think there's there's ways to fix this and I and and frankly The insurance issue that's out there, I I just hope they bring back the insurance commissioners and elected position. Yeah. Cabinet should be five people anyway, but the if they can't solve that, let's go look at that. But I
think a big committee could look at this and do a lot of good, just like was proposed, that got rejected. You can't do this in two days. The effects are too strong. But I think if we just get the truth out there, get the facts that are out there, we're entitled to go do that. Let's go share with our people and see where it goes.