WaltonGOP, thanks for posting your report on the meeting in DFS.
I am voting Yes on Amendment 1, to make the County governments accountable for what they spend.
Under the current system, local residents who have owned their homes more than three years or so (which should mean most of the voters) are not affected in the least when the BCC increases the budget by 40-50%, which they have done. Indeed, sometimes the voters get a tax cut via a rollback of the millage rate (don't even get me started on how BCC violates the spirit of the intended budget process).
I've attended the budget hearings, and there are a handful of local residents who also own rental properties who are there to protest. This is the long-term effect of SOH - we've created an entire class of voters who have no skin in the budget game. They are protected from their own County Commission.
The Walton BCC has been raising their own budget by astronomical amounts with very little outcry from their voting base. The amount of homesteaded (i.e, subject to SOH) tax base in this county is something like 25%. The other 75%, for the most part, is funded by non-voters.
Under Amendment 1, the other 75% will now have a cap, also. This means that if the county wants a 50% increase in their budget, they will have to increase the millage rate, and the voters will have to sit up and take notice, since their taxes will be affected.
I want to see the true effect of any budget increases to be seen, heard and felt by the voting population. Amendment 1 will really only pass a small part of these increases along to the voters, since everyone gets to keep SOH, and take it to their next property, but it will at least insure that budget increases look, act, smell and feel like budget increases.
No more headlines that say that the BCC has rolled back the millage rate (which under the state mandated budget process, they are OBLIGATED to do) and are waiting for applause from the populace.
I am voting Yes on Amendment 1, to make the County governments accountable for what they spend.
Under the current system, local residents who have owned their homes more than three years or so (which should mean most of the voters) are not affected in the least when the BCC increases the budget by 40-50%, which they have done. Indeed, sometimes the voters get a tax cut via a rollback of the millage rate (don't even get me started on how BCC violates the spirit of the intended budget process).
I've attended the budget hearings, and there are a handful of local residents who also own rental properties who are there to protest. This is the long-term effect of SOH - we've created an entire class of voters who have no skin in the budget game. They are protected from their own County Commission.
The Walton BCC has been raising their own budget by astronomical amounts with very little outcry from their voting base. The amount of homesteaded (i.e, subject to SOH) tax base in this county is something like 25%. The other 75%, for the most part, is funded by non-voters.
Under Amendment 1, the other 75% will now have a cap, also. This means that if the county wants a 50% increase in their budget, they will have to increase the millage rate, and the voters will have to sit up and take notice, since their taxes will be affected.
I want to see the true effect of any budget increases to be seen, heard and felt by the voting population. Amendment 1 will really only pass a small part of these increases along to the voters, since everyone gets to keep SOH, and take it to their next property, but it will at least insure that budget increases look, act, smell and feel like budget increases.
No more headlines that say that the BCC has rolled back the millage rate (which under the state mandated budget process, they are OBLIGATED to do) and are waiting for applause from the populace.