While the City of Brooksville council members approved the rollback millage rate (of 6.6426), resulting in a 0% increase in the city’s tax rate, they did decide to raise the non-ad valorem fire assessment rate again for the upcoming fiscal year.
The FY 2017 fire department budget for the city of Brooksville is $1,760,687 which includes reserves. Less money will be coming out of the general fund for FY 2017 to support the Fire Department. The general fund contribution is $904,581, which is $68,482 less than FY 2016.
While the general fund contribution will decrease for FY 2017, funding for the department through the fire assessment fee will increase, with assessments to bring in $122,635 more than FY 2016, totaling $714,302. The FY 2016 fire assessment provided 32% of the department’s budget while the FY 2017 fire assessment will provide approximately 41% of their budget.
According to Fire Chief Dave Freda, the goal is to eventually shift the majority of the Fire Department’s budget away from the ad valorem or General Fund, to primarily Assessment.
The fire assessment fee is a “non-ad valorem special assessment.” There are two tiers. Tier 1 is assessed based on value of improved properties and tier 2 is assessed a flat rate ( for vacant parcels). The fire assessment fees have been increasing steadily since they were implemented in 2012. FY 2016 fire assessment for tier 1 properties was $.80 per $1000 of improvement value and $100 per parcel for tier 2 properties. FY 2017 approved fire assessments for tier 1 is $.85 per $1000 of improved value and $125 per parcel for Tier 2.
The tier system is based on the “readiness to serve” methodology in which there is always a potential to provide service and the department needs to be funded in order to provide that service. Even a vacant lot can catch fire, so the idea is that the owner of the vacant lot needs to contribute to funding the fire department.
Several community members feel the fire assessment fee is structured unfairly. Robert Buckner pointed out that several owners of small vacant properties within the city have to pay a fee that is higher than the value of their property. At the Sept. 7th budget hearing, he provided a list of vacant residential lots within the City of Brooksville generated by the property appraiser’s office in which 9 properties out of 1,314 fall into the category of having an assessed value less than the $125 fire assessment fee. These properties range in size from 32 square feet to 5492 square feet and range from $0 to $55 in value.
“I just think it’s inequitable and unfair to charge so many folks a $125 fee or even last year’s $100 fee. Originally the per parcel assessment was at $80 now you’re at $125. That’s a 56% increase over a relatively short period of time,” said Buckner.
He explained during comment, “Seventy three percent of the vacant lots in the city are paying, just on the fire assessment, the equivalent of 10 mills or more. That right there says there is a major inequity. It’s not just the size, it’s what is the net cost to a property owner when you combine the fire assessment, city millage, county millage, the other millage rates, SWFMD, you name it. It just gets to be an awfully high number.”
In regards to Buckner’s statements, the council was in agreement that they should look at the smaller lots and consider removing them from the tier 2 assessment.
Council member Robert Battista stated, “I have no problem sitting down with staff and looking at some of the de minimis lots and taking a look at the impact of just leaving them off. If there is a sliver lot somewhere that is never going to get a need for service, I have no issue eliminating those.”
City Manager Jennene Norman-Vacha explained that there is a process for a property owner to appeal the assessment for these cases. She however admitted that tweaks in the implementation of the fire assessment would not fix the situation Buckner is opposing. Vacha stated, “Unless this council wants to readdress the methodology for fire assessment, we won’t get on the same page.” Norman-Vacha did express her confidence in the assessment methodology.
What’s Next?
Council agreed to schedule a workshop about the fire assessment methodology.