In an effort to consider their options for reducing the tax burden on their constituents, the Brooksville City Council discussed sending a letter to the county in support of the county adopting a Municipal Service Taxation Unit (MSTU). The city of Brooksville residents currently pay for both the city and county law enforcement. While the city uses most of the Sheriff’s Office services, it was specified during the meeting that the city does not rely on the Sheriff’s Office for scheduled patrol services, which the city taxpayers end up paying for.
If the city were able to opt out of the MSTU, then they would be able to resolve law enforcement double taxation issues. Ultimately however, the city council voted against sending the letter. Council member Bernardini and Mayor Battista were reticent about getting involved in an issue that would reignite disagreement between the Sheriff’s Office and the county. They both agreed that they would need more data to determine if opting out of an MSTU would save the city/taxpayers any money before they sent a letter to the county commission.
In reference to the MSTU, Council Member Kahler advocated that 3 mils of savings by opting out of the MSTU could yield up to $1 million in savings for city taxpayers.
Council Member Erhard explained her opposition, stating that she did not like the way in which the issue came before council.
From her point of view, she had received a phone call from Commissioner Champion on the morning of Aug. 4, 2017 and then later that afternoon Mr. Bonner, interim city manager, forwarded an email to herself and other council members from Ms. Kahler regarding the MSTU. It seemed as if Commissioner Champion had initiated a political maneuver in order to bring the MSTU issue back to the county commission’s table.
Erhard stated in reference to the MSTU and the phone call,
“I don’t believe it is our place. I believe if the county wants to approach council about anything regarding county, they should formally come before council like everyone else does or send a letter and not contact each council member privately to initiate something…”
Ms. Kahler clarified that she had been speaking with Commissioner Champion for several months about the issue and she was not aware that he contacted each council member. Mr. Champion was the deciding vote against the MSTU back in March and Ms. Kahler expressed how she had been very frustrated with him at that time and decided to speak to him further about the issue.
She also stated,
“He’s my county commissioner. I am a citizen of this county and I have a right to talk to my county commissioner about something that affects me as a resident…. I’m looking at every possible option of how we can fix the financial situation that we are in. I don’t want to just start cutting nickels and dimes… I want to look at the big picture. And part of the big picture is a massive situation of double taxation for our residents….”
“I went to him because he is the person that is supposed to advocate for the city at the county level. I don’t apologize for calling my commissioner,” she explained.
Council Member Kemerer was careful to emphasize that he would be in support of sending a letter to the county commissioners in support of an MSTU for Sheriff’s Office patrol services only.
He questioned Captain Rich Hankins of the Brooksville Police Department,
“I know statutorily if they drive through town that is deemed to be giving a service. To your knowledge- do we rely on any scheduled patrols through the city or is our patrol service strictly coming from the Brooksville Police Department? ”
Hankins replied, “We do not have scheduled patrols with the Sheriff’s Office.”
Council Member Kemerer further explained,
“My position was on just the patrol function… That was a true double taxation because they do not provide patrol services and therefore anything I pay for that is in fact subsidizing the other 180,000 some odd people of Hernando County. ”
“Every other function that the sheriff provides is available to us.”
“I am still in favor. To me we have nothing to lose really and I think we have everything to gain if it would be possible to put the patrol services that the sheriff provides into an MSTU and I would assume the only way that would fly with everybody in the county is if the commission did an appropriate reduction to the overall millage rate. It doesn’t really help our financial situation, it does provide our taxpayers with some tax relief.”
Kemerer says that beyond patrol services, “I would not be in favor of putting the rest of it into an MSTU, because if we have to start paying for services to the Sheriff’s Office- that never works for anyone’s benefit.”
Council Member Bernardini stated,
“Let’s get all our options, let’s lay them all out there and see what fits best.”
He explained that he will not vote in favor of the letter because “I’m not getting involved in that contest with the Sheriff and County Commission… There’s been this big fight between the Sheriff and the County Commission and I’m not going to start it.”
He also said, “There are a lot of unforeseen costs that we don’t know what they are right now.”
Mayor Battista agreed with the idea of not wishing to become involved in the MSTU issue and added, “Breaking out the patrol services on the tax bill would not achieve the transparency the board (of county commissioners) is looking for.”
Mayor Battista also expressed interest in speaking with the Sheriff about what he could offer in terms of providing law enforcement to the city.
“Let’s have the Sheriff come in and tell us what he can do for us. If we’re looking at all options… We have 30 people in the police department… 29 are uniformed, 3 on duty 24/7. Ten percent of the man power are on duty any time of the day as opposed to our fire department, 30 percent are on duty 24/7.”
He said that it would be interesting to find out if the Sheriff could do better than that 10 percent.
Natalie Kahler moved to approve the sending of the letter with the modification that it would be in support of an MSTU specifically for patrol services.
“Because I think it’s important that the citizens understand who is voting for them to have a tax increase or tax decrease and who isn’t,” she said.
Mr. Kemerer seconded the motion. The motion was voted down with Ms. Kahler and Mr. Kemerer voting to approve, Mayor Battista, Mr. Bernardini and Ms. Erhard voting to deny the motion.