Pasco To Residents: Raise Taxes, Cut Spending?

The good news is Pasco County's projected $7 million revenue shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year has been trimmed to about $5.1 million.   

The bad news is county commissioners may be forced to raise millage rates for a second consecutive year or reduce county services.

"Our departments, after four years of budget-cutting, are getting ready to cut again," Assistant County Administrator Michele Baker told about 100 people Monday night at the West Pasco Government Center in New Port Richey. The mid-year glimpse at the projected fiscal year 2012 county spending plan, which goes into effect on Oct. 1, was the third presentation this month of possible budget options.

The preliminary scenario, Baker said, is to either cut between 5 and 11 percent next year from each department's 2011 budget, or increase the county's 6.3668 millage by 2.5 percent -- which would raise the average homeowners' county property tax bill by less than $20.

The bottom line, she said, is after slashing more than $30 million since 2008 through layoffs, hiring freezes, and service reductions, finding additional cuts in already-spare budgets will be difficult.

One hundred sixty-five days before FY 2012 begins on Oct. 1, Baker said tentative mid-year valuation projections estimate the county's composite taxable property value will decline from $20.7 billion in 2010 to $20.2 billion this year.

The forecasted $424 million decline in assessed valuation -- between 2.5 and 3 percent -- is relatively modest compared to the three previous years in which the county lost more than $11 billion in taxable land value, she said.

If commissioners retain the 6.3668 mil they imposed last year, Baker said it would generate $122.363 million -- $3.17 million less than the $125.535 million the same millage rate generated in the current budget.

The estimated $3.17 million shortfall in property tax revenues is augmented by nearly $2 million in other unfunded commitments the county must assume in the FY 2012 budget, including nearly $1 million to hire more sheriff's deputies, which it agreed to do in February in a compromise with Sheriff Bob White, who initially requested a $4 million increase in his department's new budget.

Therefore, Baker said, the projected deficit is about $5.1 million. The question now, she said, is how residents want commissioners to proceed.

The county has posted an online survey on its website to solicit input from residents regarding their priorities in what to cut and what to retain.

Baker said the options are to raise the millage rate by 2.5 to 3 percent; impose more user fees; reduce services; or create municipal service taxing units (MSTUs) to give residents in specific areas the option to pay for select services they want.

The county has an MSTU to subsidize some EMT/ambulance services. Other municipalities establish MSTUs to pay for augmented law enforcement services. Some counties, such as Charlotte County, have an array of municipal service benefit units (MSBUs) -- in essence, assessment districts -- in which landowners pay fees, rather than property taxes, for specific improvements and services.

Baker said commissioners were forced to raise millage rates last year to sustain a baseline of law enforcement and fire/EMT services.

But even with that increase, the average Pasco County homeowner now pays $531.53 a year in property taxes to the county. That is slightly less than what the average homeowner paid in county property taxes 15 years ago, she said, and below the average $767.38 levy in 2003.

Baker's presentation was preceded, followed -- and often interrupted -- by Pasco County School District employees who oppose a proposed temporary reduction in impact fees that pay for new school construction. Pasco County Commissioners will vote Tuesday, April 19, on a proposal to halve the county's $4,800 school impact fee levied on each new home through 2012 in an effort to spur the area's moribund construction industry.