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Escambia County Approves $493 Million Budget, Property Tax Increase
September 24, 2019
The Escambia County Commission Monday evening approve a tax increase and an increased budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
The millage rates approved by the board are 6.6165 for the countywide millage rate, .3590 for the Library Municipal Services Taxing Unit (MSTU) and .6850 for the Sheriff’s Law Enforcement Municipal Services Taxing Unit (MSTU). The aggregate of these millage rates is 4.32% above the rolled back rate.
The rolled-back rate is the tax rate that would generate the same amount of property tax revenue as approved for the prior year. A millage rate higher than the rolled-back rate is defined by the state of Florida as a tax increase.
The commission also approved a balanced unified budget of $493,429,327 for fiscal year 2019/2020. That is 3.41%, or about $1.6 million, more than the current fiscal year.
NorthEscambia.com photo.
Comments
28 Responses to “Escambia County Approves $493 Million Budget, Property Tax Increase”
Here is the problem: People who live outside the city limits of any city or town who are against annexation are just asking for this do to population growth and a rise in crime thanks to a decade of Sheriff You Know Who, the county is going to look at raising taxes. Some county governments will even charge you an unincorporated services fee on your property tax bill if you are right outside a city corporate limit.
So now we’re paying for this new luxury jail Escambia county is building?
Somebody refresh my memory; weren’t the gas tax, the sales tax, and the multiple msbu’s going to avert raising property taxes? Escambia County needs to do what the rest of us are doing, and live within their means.
People, the cost of everything is going up and the value of the dollar is going down. Did anyone here take economics in school? This is called INFLATION. And it ain’t the fault of our local government.
the people can stop all this mess ,but we need to stick together. what will help is to vote for the Attorney and County Adm because they only answer to the BOCC, and hired and fired by the same.
A lot of valid points – bottom line is there are very few things that can be done about the people getting taxed to death – it’s always something. So you vote the halfwits out they will only be replaced with more – Politicians promise us all a change for the good – all politicians lie – ALL OF THEM! As far as the government helping? look at the garbage that’s shoved down our throats on a daily basis.
Vote them ALL out. Get some new people in there. The corruption has gone wild.
Quit letting these “lifer” good ole boys get over on us.
Why was ONLY the first part of Muscogee road paved again? And why are the commissioners approving driveways for those houses along that section? Anybody else notice this is only a certain area?
The County, Library and Sheriff millage rate has not changed from 2018 as long as this article is accurate. As home owners we received a notice of proposed property taxes in the mail earlier this year.
How about instead of soaking the citizens out of their hard earned money, government tries to LIVE WITHIN THEIR MEANS LIKE WE HAVE TO DO!
@LMGTFY
thank you for the lesson and knowlage. so we are paying twice for the sheriff and NOT getting any more service!!!!!!!!
It takes half a billion dollars to run this county for a year? NO WONDER WE ARE BROKE!!!! The city’s budget was approx $250,000,000…So it costs us nearly $750,000,000 to run the city and county?Jeez we need to get off the grid!!!!
Call it what you wish, names mean nothing. If I paid $1,200.00 for taxes on my property in 2018 and the same property for 2019 has taxes of $1,300.00, that is a tax increase.
Bergosh, for a guy with such a GIANT head, it sure is empty….
From what I understand, your property taxes will not increase. The County is collecting more revenue from an increased tax roll due to developments, but individual property taxes were not increased.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
@Retired
“What is an MSTU and what is it used for”
Thanks for helping me learn something today. I used Google to determine that the MSTU sounds like a tax payer’s friend when it comes to budget bloat.
—————————————
What is an MSTU?
A Municipal Service Taxing Unit (MSTU) is a funding mechanism for community members to create, through approval of the Board of County Commissioners, a special taxing district to make improvements to their neighborhood and/or community area. Providing additional services based on community desires.
—————————————
“…establishing a Law Enforcement Municipal Service Taxing Unit (MSTU). Despite having such a long name, the concept is fairly simple. When a county establishes an MSTU for a certain service, they create a specific tax to support that service.
Currently the Sheriff’s Budget is funded through the General Fund whose monies are generated by many different types of taxing revenues. At the close of each fiscal year, the Sheriff presents his budget to the County Commission and they determine the level at which they are willing to fund it. It is not readily apparent on the tax bill, what residents pay for the Sheriff’s budget since it comes out of the general fund. It’s impossible to know that residents are paying more for the Sheriff this year than they did last year by comparing the tax bills.”
https://www.hernandosun.com/law_enforcement_mstu_controversy
Statements like Jeff Bergosh show one of the reasons the BOCC needs an overhaul. We keep putting people on the Board who evidently have no sense of math or are YesMen to special interests.
it’s time vote these people out of office. they can’t seem stay on budget and property owners are the ones footing the bill. it would have been better to raise the sales tax and make everyone pay into this. I am sick of this. would like to see who voted to raise the property tax, so I can vote against them come election time. I will research this and find out who did this. people are sick and tired being taxed moorland more while officials spend beyond their means.
Please explain to me why the Sheriff gets a MSTU and then gets money from the budget???
what is a MSTU and what is it used for?
I’m getting tired of paying property taxes….I don’t know why they don’t raise our taxes on sales in stores so that everyone who buys things also have to pay for things they have part of.
Look on the bright side… The federal government is taxing, borrowing, and printing about $85,000,000,000 per day when you have to work for it which makes local taxes pale in comparison.
Fine. Now don’t you dare waste a penny of these funds pursuing a corrupt deal with a developer to replace the Bay Center with a useless, smaller facility that will leave the taxpayers footing the bill to repay $80 million over the next 30 years while the builder accepts zero financial risk.
OMG do these politicians really think we are that stupid? I will pay more taxes on my property this year. The amount of money I surrendered to the County has went up this year…..the amount has increased. That is a tax increase for me and my family to live here.
Do you people think there is an unlimited supply of money out here?
Why not cut the budget rather than burden property owners more?
It is time to replace the oligarchs. Vote ‘em all out.
GREAT! my corrupt, incompetent town is raising my taxes to bail out their short comings and the county is following suit. geeeeeeez!
“We most definitely DID NOT raise tax rates, the millage rate was left unchanged. The headline is borderline misleading.”
As the story states, “a millage rate higher than the rolled-back rate is defined by the state of Florida as a tax increase.” Leaving the millage rate the same, or even reducing it, is defined by Florida Law as a tax increase under the Truth in Millage (TRIM) Act if it is greater than the rolled back rate. And the the BOCC passed a millage rate than was higher; thus it is defined as a tax increase by law.
And the agenda for last night’s action clearly states an increase. And the legal notice published by the county for last night’s meeting states “Notice of Proposed Tax Increase”, and it states the BOCC has “adopted a measure to increase its property tax levy”.
We most definitely DID NOT raise tax rates, the millage rate was left unchanged. The headline is borderline misleading. I have never voted once in 13 years to raise the millage tax rates, year over year, on Escambia County taxpayers. And I won’t do that. The increased revenue we achieved while NOT raising tax rates are due to the fact that the overall value of the tax roll increased, and also this increase reflects the fact that many new houses and structures were built county-wide over the last year.
WHEN IS IT GOING STOP WE PAY TO MUCH TAX NOW PEOPLE ON FIX INCOME CAN HARDLY MAKE IT NOW. HOW ABOUT WE CUT THERE PAY TO MAKE UP FOR SOME OF THE TAX IS NEEDED