City Council will vote Tuesday to set millage rates for Duval County and determine whether it will maintain the current rate next year or a higher “rolled-back” rate, which would bring in the same revenues as this year.
In other words, the rolled-back rate means taxpayers pay a higher property tax rate but the City collects the same amount of taxes.
Lower property value assessments create the gap.
The higher rolled back rate would bring $22.5 million in fiscal 2012-13. The state allows the City to use the rate so it can collect the same amount of property tax revenue as the year before.
Mayor Alvin Brown proposes to maintain the current rate and not the rolled-back rate.
The current millage rate for the general services district is 10.0353 and the updated rolled-back rate is 10.5709, which would net the City’s general fund $22.5 million, according to an overview provided Tuesday to the Council’s Finance Committee by the Council Auditor’s Office.
A mill is equal to $1 in tax revenue for every $1,000 in assessed value.
The rate resolution must be taken up as an emergency when it is introduced during the Tuesday Council meeting. The resolution must be sent to the Property Appraiser no later than Aug. 4 so notices can be sent to property owners.
Unless a special meeting is called, Tuesday is the final full Council meeting before that date.
If the Council approves the lower rate but decides later to raise it, another round of notices would need to be sent to property owners, which could take three weeks and cost close to $250,000, Council Auditor Kirk Sherman told the committee.
Council member John Crescimbeni, who chairs the Finance Committee, said the Council will have to weigh its options.
“It is a tough call. I am of the belief that if you set the millage rate higher, it ‘disincentivizes’ you to save money and bring it in at a lower rate,” he said.
Crescimbeni said he believes the fiscally conservative Council probably will approve Brown’s proposed rate.
Sherman also presented Council with a preliminary list of questions about $35 million in Brown’s proposed budget.
Among his concerns were:
• A $16.7 million “lapse” in the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office budget. Two lapses, one for about $10.6 million and one for $6.1 million, are listed. Sherman said after the meeting that the idea of a lapse is that employees will not be with the department all year. He said the bigger the department, the bigger the lapse, but that there are $374 million of line items and a total expenditure of $358 million. “They just have a gap,” he told the committee. He suggested the committee work with the administration and Sheriff’s Office during budget hearings to make the numbers “real.”
• Similarly, there was a $2.5 million lapse in City non-departmental revenue.
• Revenue of $1.5 million from red light camera fines. He said the legislation has not been passed and the actual expected revenue is undetermined.
• A $4.5 million estimate from the state for state revenue sharing, although the current year is $4.5 million short. “The state’s estimates are often no better than ours,” he said.
• Fire and rescue revenues of $5 million and $1.7 million of fire inspection revenues. He said revenues of that nature are speculative.
• Money allocated for the continued arrangement to lease the Jake Godbold Annex from the Police and Fire Pension Fund in lieu of a pension contribution. Sherman said the rate on the lease is higher than other City leases and the price continues to escalate. Buying the building is an option he has advocated, but has not been budgeted.
“I think there are always a few concerns, but I don’t ever recall them being to the sum of $35 million. He knows what to look for and where to look for it and any time he has a concern, I have a concern,” Crescimbeni said after the meeting.
The Council Auditor’s Office received 3,000 pages of details that auditors will analyze leading up to the Finance Committee’s budget hearings beginning Aug. 9.
The hearings will continue throughout the month.
Council must vote on a balanced budget before the fiscal year starts Oct. 1.
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