Tax collector budget and amendment impact
What the county recorded
This item is not from the published agenda
This archive found it in the recording: a call to order, a recess, or business the board never listed. The county recorded nothing about it, so everything below is our reading.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Jun 18, 2026
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What was said
Machine transcription of 15m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 98% of 59 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Um thank you for putting this together as well and uh uh a big shout out to our um my colleagues, I guess you could say, the other constitutional officers. We all get along so very well sometimes. Um but we have a great relationship in helping each uh each out and of course the county is just outstanding as we reach out to them as well and uh Truly uh I I don't see this happening in other ta other counties. I don't hear from our tax collectors, uh my co other tax collectors
throughout the state that they actually have these types of meetings. So thank you very much. I can't present the budget to you because it's not due until July 1st. Um and I'm not coming back here after July, just so you know. But uh uh our budget will probably be uh uh I mean No different than in the past. Uh haven't decided what a pay raise we'll put into the Department of Revenue. I will tell you that uh we're gonna spend a lot of capital next year. Um and the reason why
I need to do this is uh if the amendment goes pa if the amendment passes Um Let me put it this way. I'm gonna give you a nice check this year.
Ding ding.
It'll be the last ding. Unfortunately. If this amendment passes uh it will hit our offices big time. And I may may may I explain? I serve between fifty and sixty thousand people in our five offices each month. That doesn't take into account the thousands of uh transactions we do on our website or through the mail. Ninety five percent Of the people that walk into our office. They're not there to pay
their taxes. They're there for motor vehicle services.
You talk about on unfunded mandates? Somebody that walks into our office for a driver's license, which is fifty four dollars and twenty five cents, I get six dollars and twenty five cents. The rest goes to Tallahassee. Mr. Kobala. Walks into our office to renew his registration, it might be fifty, sixty, seventy dollars, eighty dollars. I get two dollars and fifty cents. The rest goes to Tallahassee. I lose four million dollars a year on motor vehicle services. Four
million dollars a year I lose. But it's a mandate that I provide those services. It's in Florida statute that the tax collector will provide those services. We talk about an unfunded mandate. So let's say this amendment passes.
and all these property taxes that are no longer there, that I'm no longer collecting. People say, well, how do you make up that four million dollars, Fassano? I make up that four million dollars by the property taxes that I collect. Now all of a sudden those property taxes are no longer there. I asked the legislature and they look at me and dumbfounded and I asked, Well who's gonna pick up this difference, who's gonna pick up this loss of four million dollars a year? Because even when property taxes
go away, guess what? I still have to serve those 50 to 60,000 people a month in my offices for what? Motor vehicle services. So please understand that this will be the last check that I will give to you if this amendment passes. Uh I can survive probably at just under two hundred and fifty thousand exemption. I can survive. After that, we are now in the red. And I have to start closing tax collector offices
and laying people off. This will already happen in some tax collectors throughout the state, even at the hundred and fifty thousand dollar. And I will give you for instance, Hernando County is a perfect example. Hernando County has very, very, very little non-homesteaded properties. It's all homesteaded up there. they will get hit big time. Flagler Clowney is another one, Saint Lucie County is another. these counties will get hit big. We're fortunate, I have to tell ya. I love
now seeing apartment complexes being being
built.
Bring in those those car washes. Storage units. I love them now. I used to get upset seeing them. Not anymore, man. Bring them on in. Bring them in. Bill. This is what keeps us afloat in that county. And so when uh uh and and help correct me if I'm wrong, Daniel, where he's gone, he left me. Uh I think we're about 50-50 as far as homestead versus non-homestead in Pasco. So we're fortunate there. I need to let you know though, it's it's
gonna be a tough ride, um uh, if this amendment passes. People need to be educated to understand. It's very easy. Uh uh look, The average citizen walks into the booth and says, Wow, we're gonna increase your homestead by two hundred and fifty grand. They're probably going to vote for it. But the trickle-down effect.
to our constitutions, but to my office is overwhelming. Overwhelming. So Uh we will see what happens. But I need to let you know that um uh my offices will have to some of them will have to be closed down, people will be laid off. Um and that ten minute wait when you come in our offices is probably gonna go to an hour, an hour and a half. So anyway. There's my presentation. Any any questions? Please. Mr.
Wade, thank you. Well, I'm gonna offend your colleagues, but you run a second to none operation.
That's what I say all the time.
and you're receiving service within ten to fifteen minutes. Thank you. Uh very personalized service by caring folks and Um you've just done a tremendous job. Um with how you know, with your team and how you how you treat people. So thank thank you for that. It's been we hear compliments all the time, no matter where where your facility is. With your facilities Does Pasco County m manage and maintain those facilities or is that under his bucket
of of funds? So that's the one piece we do do for the tax.
Yes. You you've been great. The county has been outstanding. Um we have five facilities. Uh soon we'll have six with our new Angeline office being built. Uh and when that's built there's a possibility I may close our Land O' Lakes office, possibly. I know that um uh the county would love to have that parking area. Um but um uh yeah they they pay they help us with our our electricity, water, things like that. Uh they've been very, very helpful. They're owned by the county, the buildings.
Uh one of the things that we're trying to do this year and over the next year, uh I rent a lease, if you will, our Wesley Chapel office. Our support services office in Santa Ann, we lease that building. I'm trying to get out of the leasing business because if this amendment passes, I won't have the cash to do that. So while I have cash now, we're trying to build our support services. We're trying to, in the process of building a Wesley Chapel office, uh, so we can keep
them going, not have to pay. lease anymore, not have to pay our Wesley Chapel Wesley Chapel loss cost me about $150,000 a year in lease payments. I'm trying to get out of that. Support service is the same thing. So my goal is to before this amendment passes and has an effect on our office, try and get these buildings built so we don't have to pay any more lease.
On our side. Board decision, but our customers have become so accustomed to the level of service they receive at the tax collector's office. I think it'd be important.
to understand
What in within our budget and obviously the scenarios that play out what it would take to keep the doors open. on the facilities that he's using.
Mr.
Chairman, if I may, I don't want any money from you. We'll we'll manage and I really believe that as I talk to our legislative leaders who realize the the impact that they've created for us. I tried to tell them in January, came before the delegation, explained to them this is what will happen to the tax collector's office. Uh they were all like in shock. Wow, I never knew this. I never knew that. You're not funded with anybody else. No, we don't get any money from anyone. We live on our um when somebody walks to the door pays
their property taxes. I have a feeling that something's gonna happen if this amendment passes, uh that they're gonna have to do something, maybe increase the um uh the amount of money that we get to keep. Instead of sending it off to Tallahassee to the trust fund. Representative Magader has already called me about that. He said that he and his colleagues are realizing the impact they're gonna ha this will have on the tax collector offices. Um I already know of one tax collector that's not far away, who's a huge county,
has told me that even at 150,000 he's got to shut down offices and lay people off. He's now going to bring in private companies to provide these services, which by the way, they charge a lot more than what we can legally charge. Um I think we're gonna be fine. I don't want any money from the county. I would never ask for we'll we're gonna survive somehow. But I appreciate that.
No, it's when you have Fifty, sixty thousand customers a month coming in.
Yes.
And that level of service and convenience goes away, those folks are going to be calling. Well, if they voted
for it, they they're
gonna deserve it.
I'm gonna give them the legislators and the and the former governor's phone number is what I'm gonna give.
We know how memories are, irregardless, that level of expectation and customer satisfaction has been set.
But you know, Mr. Chairman, this is not good this this amendment, if it passes, it doesn't just affect us. It affects our property appraiser. Our supervisor of elections. I mean, what's he gonna do? Cancel an election because because he didn't have the money to to to keep them going? I mean this is the most ridiculous thing what happened in two days, two days in Tallahassee. Something like this went through no committees, it was thrown to the floor, the House and the Senate and passed. It was embarrassing. And people up there voted for
it. Because you know why? Because they wanted to protect their their budget items. So the governor wouldn't vete 'em. That's why it was done so quickly. It's things like this that it just embarrassed me as a former legislator for nineteen years to see this happen. Um, we're gonna survive, everybody will survive, but I will tell you at some point, uh, because not only do you have it gets to the 250 mark. you have also that percentage that increases every year. that gets us above the two fifty.
If you notice on your tax notice, it's no longer fifty thousand dollar homestead. It's like fifty-one, fifty-two thousand. It goes up a percentage now under the state constitution. So that's gonna automatically rise after two hundred and fifty thousand. So it's gonna be a huge impact over the years. This is something that should have been put in place over a ten year period of time, increasing homestead in a in a in a slow way, in an easy way. Easy way so our counties and our uh constitutions can uh could
handle it.
And uh something that Commissioner Weightman brought up that I never thought about on Tuesday was that it's gonna open the floodgates for people up north to wanna move down here where it's even cheaper And so we are gonna be flooded with people coming in and maybe not people buying, you know, two million dollar homes, but the start the entry level homes and we're gonna have to provide services. Yeah.
Well let me if I may have a lot
of people that are gonna move here.
The five year it's
very scary.
The five year, by the way, uh this five year thing where you have to l live in Florida for five years. Of course it is. You know, I've lived here fifty four years and and Ms. Com Penny Starkey, your family probab probably remembers way back when. It used to be back in the seventies and eighties in order to get homestead You had to live in Florida for five years. That was thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court as unconstitutional. So no doubt this will get thrown out as well. So it's gonna be a bigger impact
than the estimate of what the what they're saying from Tallahassee.
Well, I wanna say you've done a great job putting your voice out there and actually you educated me a little bit more about the perspective of the licenses and the taxes collected and and how that's gonna affect you dramatically. We we looked at this when they first talked about the start of the session, at a hundred thousand dollars of this reduction. We could pay all the public safety we have to be mandated. We don't have the money for nine one one on top of that. We're like six million dollars short. When we went through 07-08 when the tech bubble
hit and we had to cut parks and libraries 29%, remember people going to Hudson Beach or Green Key Beach, they couldn't afford to go to spending two dollars. And and the money we collected probably just negated itself anyway for the la labor involved. But the impact it's gonna have with the the kids playing sports which our people voted they wanted better parks and libraries.
You've got you've got bonds. You've got our tax notice has seven bonds on there. Now those are set by mileage rates. Now one of the you know, they're looking at us in New York wondering what's gonna ha the bond the bond desk is looking saying, Well what's gonna happen to Florida with all these bonds that are out there? These counties and cities have them. There's no question, I can't speak on behalf of Mr. Karbala or Budget Director. There's no doubt you've got to increase the millage rate on those bonds. You've got to to pay those. If
you don't, they're going to go into default. We'll never get another bond again. The our rating will go down from A to who knows what. There's so much that's involved in this that they don't take this into consideration in Tallahassee.
And then like you say, to do this in two days. And they talked about they couldn't get it through. And I I I tell I get more complaints about insurance anyway. I mean why why that is not the number one. I don't know. But literally just to go with a hundred thousand, never mind a hundred and fifty and two fifty following, we can't pay public safety.
That's right.
The way they want us to do it.
Yeah.
Well I I thank you very much. I can go home now. I thank you. I
I thank you so much for a little race.
Okay. Well I appreciate it. So uh center, congratulations. He had a not many people in the we know right now, he had a big win yesterday in court. Yes. So that was a very big victory. And then um the other one too is I agree a hundred percent if we were in the land of uh storage units and car washes, it'd be phenomenal. They do not call for public service. Chief Quinn can attest to. They uh they're very great. They pay taxes and don't call us. So I appreciate it. So um I just want to start, I've been blessed um to have a phenomenal team.