The Issues

Can we have a great city without higher taxes?

The Issue

An early Christmas present

Florida taxpayers got a nice surprise this year. The Florida Legislature finally listened to our concerns over runaway government and provided much needed property tax relief. The relief starts with an immediate cut in property taxes, caps future increases, and creates a constitutional “Super Homestead Exemption” for Florida voters to approve in the January 29, 2008 election. Many small government supporters like this change, knowing the killing the beast of big government required reducing its food supply of taxpayer money. Sure, there was a loophole that allowed the city council to override the tax relief if enough city councilmen voted in its favor. But that will be hard for politicians to do and stay in office, right?

The big takeaway?

Not necessarily. All you have to do is call any new city revenue "fees" instead of "taxes", talk about the need to diversify city revenue and minimize the impact of these "fees" in the first year so that they will get passed by the City Council. So the Mayor introduced three new "fees" into the new budget. They are as follows:

A three percent franchise "fee" that goes into effect on April 1, 2008
A residential solid waste "fee" of $5 a month that goes into effect on April 1, 2008
An average storm water "fee" of $5 a month for homeowners that goes into effect on July 1, 2008

Notice that these "fees" start the in the middle of the fiscal year. This allows the city to point out that despite the new "fees", the average homeowner still realizes tax savings of $79 in the next fiscal year. However, as noted by Florida Times Union Reader Advocate Wayne Ezell (What budget report didn't tell, Florida Times Union, July 22,2007), the $77 that the average homeowner will recieve in new "fees" next year does not represent the annual cost to the homeowner since the new "fees" start in the middle of the year. When the costs of the "fees" are annualized, the average homeowner would lose $28 despite the property tax reform. So you get a break in the next fiscal year. But in the following fiscal year, you will likely lose the tax relief provided by the Florida Legislature.

Can we cut more from the budget?

Can we trim the budget further without destroying our way of life? Sure we can! We can do so by funding only the core functions of government. The city has taken on a long list of responsibilities that are not core government functions. They include but are certainly not limited to grants to nonprofit groups, incentives to businesses to set up shop in Jacksonville, grants to neighborhood groups to build fences and fountains, repair/rehab assistance in certain neighborhoods, subsidizing the Jacksonville Jaguars football team and the Jacksonville Children's Commission.

Unfortunately, politicians measure their accomplishments by how much taxpayer money that they spend. Mayor Peyton is no exception. It is time that we tell the Mayor that the best government is one that lets us spend our money the way that we want to spend it and not the way that the politicians want to spend it.