lazin&drinkin
Beach Lover
It is likely that at an upcoming County Commission meeting on July 13 the Commissioners will vote to increase the millage rate from the present level of about 3.5 to a proposed 4.2 or so. Given the vagaries of the property tax options available to the Commission, it is quite likely that our property taxes in S. Walton will be increasing unless we can persuade at least one commissioner to vote against this, assuming that two are already disposed to vote against an increase.
Please bear in mind that while FL law limits property valuation increases to 3% and 10% annually for residents and non-residents respectively, those limits are not in place for the actual amount of taxes assessed, and even those limits can be exceeded by supermajority vote of the Commission. Do not be deceived if you hear that the plan is to vote for a roll-back rate. If you were to think that implied a reduction in taxes, you'd be wrong; it would be an increase for most.
That being said, it is important that as many owners as possible both contact your Commissioners as well as show up in person at the County Commission meetings to publicly oppose an increase during the public comment period.
In it's search for savings, the county is looking at and quite likely to implement a plan to open a county-sponsored doc in a box in DeFuniak Springs for county employees and their families. This will require an initial capital outlay of over 2/3 of a million bucks by the county. BCBS is contemplating a contribution toward that, but they have made no commitment. The clinic would be absolutely free for county employees and their families, and all drugs on their formulary, 1200 or so, would also be free. The doctor would work 20 hours a week to start though that could increase with demand. As a taxpayer and not a county employee or dependent, you're stuck with the bill for them and for your own family.
The companies of course promise cost savings. Employees and their families would be encouraged to use the facility but not required to. Suffice it that experience might suggest that county government would convert this into an expensive undertaking, not to mention that one may anticipate an unlimited demand for almost anything perceived as free. Your tax rates are at risk here. Putative savings prominently mentioned include reduction of gratuitous visits to the ER for routine, non-emergent matters, a huge cost-driver, but the clinic will not address this in the least. It's to be a M-F regular business hours operation only.
I was among a small number who attended the public meeting with District 7 State Rep Marti Coley last night. Discussed in the Q&A with Rep. Coley was the Habitat Conservation Plan. For the uninitiated, whose number in this regard included me until this afternoon, the HCP is a proposed agreement among Walton County, The FL Dept of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Game and Wildlife Commission or some similar agency, which agreement, I'm told, provides that in perpetuity, Walton County will pay the state and the feds a sum in excess of $10 million per year, which sum will be raised by the county by levying a tax on every lineal foot of beachfront property in the county, a tax in the approximate amount of $235 a foot per year.
This is a current matter before the County Commission which appears headed for approval. Given that there are about 20 miles of privately owned beach in the county, the sum raised would be about $25 million per year. If the numbers provided me by the gentleman with a copy of the HCP in his hands are accurate, it seems the county is raising 2.5 times the putative fine.
A bit of history might be helpful here. In 2005 after Hurricane Dennis, a number of homes on the beach in South Walton County were effectively being taken over by the Gulf, leading a small number (8 or 9, I'm told) of homeowners to seek permits for seawalls. While I'm a bit puzzled about TEMPORARY permits, they ultimately got TEMPORARY permits from the county and proceeded to build seawalls. I'm told that the company building the seawalls was owned by a County Commissioner of the time. When they later sought permission to cover the seawalls with sand, permission was refused.
Since the seawalls might, in the view of the conservationists, negatively impinge nesting sea turtles, all 9 of them in this county, a firestorm of sorts has ensued. The FL Dept of Environmental Protection and the big boys and girls in the related federal agencies were offended that the county had presented them with a fait accompli which contravened their core beliefs, which offense has occasioned our punishment by among other things the looming Turtle Light Ordinance, and now the HCP.
Facilitating a quandary, the state has implemented a regulation which effectively provides a 1 year moratorium during which no actions may be taken by any parties with respect to seawalls and which moratorium is currently in effect. Since the affected individuals may not tear down their seawalls (which is not to suggest that they wish to, but rather to indicate that the county and the state are powerless to demand such for now), the state and the feds are in effect fining the county for its sin of granting these temporary permits in the first place.
The County, in its infinite wisdom, intends to effectively fine all the other owners of beachfront property in the county forever to fund attoning for its sins in this matter. Ergo, all of us on the beach are paying for the County's mistake occasioned by 8 or 9 owners down the beach. Notably absent in paying for the County's mistake are the other taxpayers of the county who, by the way, sinned no more than did all the folks on the beach.
If you care enough to read this, please care enough to protest by phone, personal contact, and by showing up at BCC meetings to personally and publicly protest these taxes and this proposed agreement. While I have no animus toward County employees and have been favorably impressed by most whom I've met, I do not believe their employment by the County should shield them from the same storms which assault the rest of us in these difficult times. Many in the private sector have lost their jobs, their pensions, their health insurance. Others have absorbed decreases in pay. Equity suggests if not demands that public employees suffer along with the rest of us rather than be shielded by the power of the County to confiscate the money of private citizens via taxation without limit.
Please bear in mind that while FL law limits property valuation increases to 3% and 10% annually for residents and non-residents respectively, those limits are not in place for the actual amount of taxes assessed, and even those limits can be exceeded by supermajority vote of the Commission. Do not be deceived if you hear that the plan is to vote for a roll-back rate. If you were to think that implied a reduction in taxes, you'd be wrong; it would be an increase for most.
That being said, it is important that as many owners as possible both contact your Commissioners as well as show up in person at the County Commission meetings to publicly oppose an increase during the public comment period.
In it's search for savings, the county is looking at and quite likely to implement a plan to open a county-sponsored doc in a box in DeFuniak Springs for county employees and their families. This will require an initial capital outlay of over 2/3 of a million bucks by the county. BCBS is contemplating a contribution toward that, but they have made no commitment. The clinic would be absolutely free for county employees and their families, and all drugs on their formulary, 1200 or so, would also be free. The doctor would work 20 hours a week to start though that could increase with demand. As a taxpayer and not a county employee or dependent, you're stuck with the bill for them and for your own family.
The companies of course promise cost savings. Employees and their families would be encouraged to use the facility but not required to. Suffice it that experience might suggest that county government would convert this into an expensive undertaking, not to mention that one may anticipate an unlimited demand for almost anything perceived as free. Your tax rates are at risk here. Putative savings prominently mentioned include reduction of gratuitous visits to the ER for routine, non-emergent matters, a huge cost-driver, but the clinic will not address this in the least. It's to be a M-F regular business hours operation only.
I was among a small number who attended the public meeting with District 7 State Rep Marti Coley last night. Discussed in the Q&A with Rep. Coley was the Habitat Conservation Plan. For the uninitiated, whose number in this regard included me until this afternoon, the HCP is a proposed agreement among Walton County, The FL Dept of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Game and Wildlife Commission or some similar agency, which agreement, I'm told, provides that in perpetuity, Walton County will pay the state and the feds a sum in excess of $10 million per year, which sum will be raised by the county by levying a tax on every lineal foot of beachfront property in the county, a tax in the approximate amount of $235 a foot per year.
This is a current matter before the County Commission which appears headed for approval. Given that there are about 20 miles of privately owned beach in the county, the sum raised would be about $25 million per year. If the numbers provided me by the gentleman with a copy of the HCP in his hands are accurate, it seems the county is raising 2.5 times the putative fine.
A bit of history might be helpful here. In 2005 after Hurricane Dennis, a number of homes on the beach in South Walton County were effectively being taken over by the Gulf, leading a small number (8 or 9, I'm told) of homeowners to seek permits for seawalls. While I'm a bit puzzled about TEMPORARY permits, they ultimately got TEMPORARY permits from the county and proceeded to build seawalls. I'm told that the company building the seawalls was owned by a County Commissioner of the time. When they later sought permission to cover the seawalls with sand, permission was refused.
Since the seawalls might, in the view of the conservationists, negatively impinge nesting sea turtles, all 9 of them in this county, a firestorm of sorts has ensued. The FL Dept of Environmental Protection and the big boys and girls in the related federal agencies were offended that the county had presented them with a fait accompli which contravened their core beliefs, which offense has occasioned our punishment by among other things the looming Turtle Light Ordinance, and now the HCP.
Facilitating a quandary, the state has implemented a regulation which effectively provides a 1 year moratorium during which no actions may be taken by any parties with respect to seawalls and which moratorium is currently in effect. Since the affected individuals may not tear down their seawalls (which is not to suggest that they wish to, but rather to indicate that the county and the state are powerless to demand such for now), the state and the feds are in effect fining the county for its sin of granting these temporary permits in the first place.
The County, in its infinite wisdom, intends to effectively fine all the other owners of beachfront property in the county forever to fund attoning for its sins in this matter. Ergo, all of us on the beach are paying for the County's mistake occasioned by 8 or 9 owners down the beach. Notably absent in paying for the County's mistake are the other taxpayers of the county who, by the way, sinned no more than did all the folks on the beach.
If you care enough to read this, please care enough to protest by phone, personal contact, and by showing up at BCC meetings to personally and publicly protest these taxes and this proposed agreement. While I have no animus toward County employees and have been favorably impressed by most whom I've met, I do not believe their employment by the County should shield them from the same storms which assault the rest of us in these difficult times. Many in the private sector have lost their jobs, their pensions, their health insurance. Others have absorbed decreases in pay. Equity suggests if not demands that public employees suffer along with the rest of us rather than be shielded by the power of the County to confiscate the money of private citizens via taxation without limit.
