tax collector check and Amendment Three

2:45Okay. Alright, let's uh hear from our tax collector, Mike Fasano.

2:55Good morning, Mr. Chairman and uh Commissioners. First of all, thank you very much for allowing me to come and say a few words for Commissioner Oakley this morning on the east side. Uh, happen to be going across fifty two and There was the rocket up there. It was an amazing sight all the way over from the from the Cape. Beautiful. Uh sky was clear, the sun was perfect. And uh driving down fifty-two and there you see it, uh a great sight. I wanna thank you very much for the great work that all of you do. Your county administrator and and his staff, second

3:26to none, working with our office, getting things done. Your county attorney's office, he and I spoken often about the PACE program and I appreciate him keeping us up to date as well. I have a check for you this morning. I wish it was going to be a little bit more than what I had hoped for to begin with. And a couple of things. One, uh we're not sure whether Amendment three is going to pass or not, but I had to take some action this year. If it did pass, we put out a lot of money each

3:56year for each month, I should say, for having to rent offices. And uh I want it needed to get away from that. So we are uh purchased some land and we'll be building a new Wesley Chapel office on a piece of property that we will own. We are building uh support services on a piece of property we purchased because I cannot afford if this amendment passes

4:22And so I'm hoping that we'll get ri we will get a w get away from that if this amendment p passes. Um I'm gonna give you a check today for three million seven hundred and ninety-two thousand dollars. Uh it's good, but it should be better. However If Amendment three passes.

4:41You'll never get another check from me.

4:43Bye. You hear that everybody.

4:45You'll never get another check because uh the tax collector, as you know, we lose four and a half million dollars a year. Providing motor vehicle services. 95% of the services we provide in our five offices is motor vehicle services. So they say to me, Fasano, how do you live? 'Cause we don't get any money from you. We don't get any money from the State. We don't get any money from the from the Federal Government. And I tell 'em that we live on a small percentage or a little very

5:15small fee that we get when we collect property taxes. So when you reduce the amount of property taxes, that means we're collecting less. And I still have this four and a half million dollar deficit in providing motor vehicle services. I tell our legislators that regardless of property taxes, I by law I must provide motor vehicle services. We serve between fifty and sixty thousand people a month in our five offices. Ninety five percent of them walk in there to get motor vehicle services.

5:46Somebody walks in to do a driver's license for $54.25, I get $6.25. Somebody walks into our office and renews their registration for $40, $50, $60, I keep $2.50. The rest goes to Tallahassee. Unfortunately, a lot of people are unaware of this. They're not aware of this. You see a lot of information, very misinformation that's on Facebook and on social pages. Please, people, call

6:16me. I'll be more than happy to speak to anyone in any group to explain to them the trickle-down effect that this will have on my office. I'm hoping to survive, but it'll be very close. Other tax collectors have already told me they will close down their tax collector offices. They will lay people off. But they still must provide motor vehicle services to the people that walk into their office, even though they lose money every time somebody does walk into their office. So if it passes, please

6:46understand. And also understand this. The less money I collect for you, I still collect for C D Ds. They don't they don't uh the the uh homestead exemption does not Deal with C D Ds. So as this income decreases in collecting for you, today I'm gonna give you ninety percent of what I have in excess fees. But your your percentage will drop. significantly if this amendment passes of any excess fees

7:17I do have. Okay? Questions, comments, criticisms, wait till I leave.

7:23I'd I'd like to say thank you for the for the check. Uh great great surprise coming today.

7:28Yeah and Commissioner Oriano, thank you. Thank you for your messages too as well. And getting the correct message out there, the right message. And as I tell people, check the facts. Get educated on Amember three, n understand and appreciate what the trickle down effect is. Firefighters in this state and law enforcement of the State, they don't normally get together together and oppose something, but they are in this one because they know the effect it will have on their departments and their agencies.

7:59Well I tell you your your voice of someone who's been to Tallahassee on both levels up there. and seen it and come back to local government to see what goes on. Yes,

8:08sir.

8:08Uh the level of respect that you carry uh is is phenomenal. So when you have been such a great voice to just try to educate people what's going on.

8:16Yeah.

8:16I j I just took the last thing I put out there yesterday just 'cause It's time. We've heard er all the discussions on social media, you see the T V stuff. And I just laid something out there real quick simple how our budget looked. And I'm gonna I'm gonna probably repost the same post and I'm gonna do it like you. Yeah. I'm not gonna take the feedback.

8:33Yeah.

8:34Just so people look at the message, not the comments. Yeah. And I'm gonna you I'm gonna see you'll see me tweaking that probably later on today. Good for you. And I and I just made sure the numbers were solid. I'll probably answer a couple of questions in a separate post with it coming out but But I just want the facts out there so people can see the the danger that's out there. We've got Kitty F ranch that's gonna come in and talk about getting a dirt road paved. And I'm saying there's no money there. Correct. I says and if this goes through, there's four point nine million dollars we lose. Yep. If you took it the fire,

9:00MSTUR COUT FIRE's gonna see us significant reduction.

9:06And like the legislation, you can charge for these. But You gotta fund them. And I got fourteen million dollars of unfunded mandates from Tal Hassy. They get th the funny thing is, they're trying to like go put a tax increase on Amendment One so they can collect more reserves because they've maxed out what they can do.

9:23But if you read the amendment fully, you find out another thing which is dangerous. They want to control Oh yeah. They want to control local government. And as a Republican, I never thought that we would see that come out of Tallahassee in the legislature wanting to control local government. That's a dangerous move. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

9:41Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you.

9:50Might be

9:50the last check.

9:54I hope not.