Did City Manager McLemore and Mayor Bush Tell Them to HUSH-UP ? 

  You can bet that somebody is holding the TRUTH from the citizens of Winter Springs !

 The emailed letter as received by PFGG outlining the TRUE figures of the "fire tax" -- below -- 

    The concept of having all households of Winter Springs paying equal share in fire service fee does sound good in theory.    Winter Springs would drop the city millage rate by 24% to 3.2496 and you now have the lowest city millage rate in the county and accommodate the state mandate.    However, for most residents this will look like a credit card teaser rate with higher fees to come.    New established city millage rate and proposed fire fees of $216 and $256 allow real impact calculations based on taxable home values.    What was said  to have a negative impact for a few turned into the majority.

    The approximate taxable value break even point of no millage increase (property tax + fire fee tax) is a home at $205,000 with $216 annual fire fee and $244,000 with $256 annual fire fee.    Dwellings below the break even point will pay higher taxes while dwellings above will pay lower taxes.   Unfortunately, almost 75% of dwellings in Winter Springs fall below the $205,000 taxable home value at $216 fire fee and 80% at the $256 fire fee.     It also means that the lower the taxable home value, the higher your total tax impact increase.    Using the lower proposed fire fee of $216, more than 20% of Winter Springs dwellings will now pay the highest total taxes in the entire county.    All Winter Springs households would of had the second lowest city tax in the entire county if total millage remained constant at 4.4019 .

    The city is now considering a lower annual fire fee of $194 and possible exemptions for low income residents after serious impact concerns came to light at the last hour.   However, the math still reveals that the approximate taxable value break even point is at $185,000 which would still produce higher taxes for at least 67% of households.  15% of households would pay the highest city taxes in the entire county unless special exemptions are considered.    Exemptions also spell higher operating cost.

    The flaunted 24% millage reduction certainly had appeal, but here is the reality when you do the math.    A low taxable value home of $60,000 (~1,500 units @ or less of 11,785 in Winter Springs) translates to a  annual savings of about $63.    Obviously, the proposed fire fees are much higher than $63 thus much higher total tax impact.    Apparently, the most expensive residential taxable value home in Winter Springs is at $1,790,298 which translates to a annual savings of about $1,880.00.    In this case the annual savings clearly outweighs the fire fee.    

    The fire fee concept is simply not cost effective and economical because Winter Springs contains  too much contrast of low taxable value homes to high taxable value homes and the variations within.    Majority of citizens will pay higher total city taxes with zero value added.    This turned into a manipulated maneuver  with long term consequence that is no different than the “shell game” of Tallahassee.    Don’t forget the city is also spending about $100,000+ of your tax dollars for consulting and implementation of the fire fee.    The paid consultants never revealed the true impact on the majority.    If this is truly a fair concept, why not implement  police department as well?    Where would it stop and yes, I have done the preliminary math where low income housing simply could not exist in Winter Springs if the logic grows.    It would be a mutated version of eminent domain.    

Ron Ligthart,

Winter Springs                                                                                                 

 Our Thanks to Mr. Ron Ligthart from the PFGG staff.   

This is more than one could EVER get from the "dancing-dais-darlings" -- except maybe Commissioner Krebs.    She also came up with some realistic figures.

They were CONNING you citizens -- WHAT are you going to do about it?

PFGG had warned you citizens as far back as September of 2007 of this pending "phony fire tax " matter when we published an article called ---  [ "Under the Bald Eagle's Eye" ].      It started a whole " NEW  TAXING game ".

Go to the link to that article just above, and see how this game  was being played out by the city manager.