Florida Property Tax Relief Could Force Layoffs
June 23rd, 2011
Thanks to a $210 million tax relief bill signed into law in Florida Wednesday, people in the South Florida Water Management District will get a 30 percent property tax bill reduction[1]. In fact, all four of Florida’s water management districts will have tax revenue reduced and tax bills will fall as a result. However, some people are not as happy about this move as you might expect, because all of the water management districts will lose jobs as a result of the falling taxes, and environmentalists say that these jobs will likely come from “critical restoration projects” like those in the Everglades.
To the average homeowner, the idea of paying 30 percent less on their property tax bill sounds like a welcome relief. It’s money that can be spent to keep another bill up to date or that can be saved or spent on other things the family needs. Kirk Fordham, though, founder and CEO of the Everglades foundation, calls this move a “slap in the face…when we’re facing one of the worst water crises we’ve ever seen in the state’s history.” Others say Fordham is exaggerating: “We are still going to be able to provide all the necessary flood control and water supply and environmental restoration,” insists Joe Collins, chairman of the board of the South Florida Water Management District.
The number of layoffs that will result from the loss of tax dollars is not yet available. Do you think that it is reasonable to insist that taxes never be cut because those taxes now support government job salaries? Did Florida’s governor do the right thing by cutting property taxes across the state?
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Let us know what you think about this catch-22 in the space below.
[1] http://www.wptv.com/dpp/money/property-tax-relief-coming,-but-at-what-cost%3F
June 23rd, 2011 at 9:50 AM
He definitely did the right thing! The government is oversize and bloated at every level and will never use that money as efficiently as the private sector where the funds will now go. The move will also help restore property values as people will now be able to allocate more of their budget to P&I instead of taxes.
June 23rd, 2011 at 10:26 AM
Florida’s governor is short-sighted at best. Florida already has low taxes because they sock it to tourists-I am one tourist who will no longer go to Kissimmee every year because I got a $25 charge for entering, by mistake, an unattended toll road and not having the necessary device onboard my rental car to donate the $1 toll. If any State should have a robust rainy day fund, it should be Florida. When the next hurricane goes rumbling through, I don’t want my tax dollars going through FEMA to Florida.
In fact, I’d just as soon abolish FEMA. People who live in disaster-prone places should get insurance or get out, and should keep plugged in with friends, relatives, religious institutions, and other sources of non-governmental aid.
States are allowed to choose taxpayers over water management, up to the point where they run afoul of Federal clean water regulations or mess up the environment of their neighbors. If mismanagement were a crime, we’d have the highest percentage of criminals of any nation. Oops, we already do. Perhaps we should double the incarcerated population. And perhaps we could relocate a lot of prisons to Floride, so there would be a greater incentive to visit the State, and so they could hire as guards all the elderly who no longer have the pensions and real estate values they’d counted on.
June 23rd, 2011 at 11:42 AM
Tax relief of any kind is the right way to go. Mr Eisberg is victim of his own lack of attention to detail when renting a car. Read your contract,dummy! Anyway reduction of taxes forces legislatures on fiscal diets to throw out non essential junk programs and allows more efficient useage of taxpayer dollars. Meanwhile those dollars remain in the private sector contributing more to the state’s economy and providing employment. And that Mr Eisberg is Econ 101 so the Governor of Florida remains smarter than you are. The shortsidedness is your own for your toll road cost but in typical liberal fashion you have to blame somebody else.
June 24th, 2011 at 4:43 PM
The tax cut will not result in 30% savings on property taxes to homeowners. The 30% is the amount of budget cut the water management district will have to deal with. The tax savings to the average homeowner will be approximately $20-$24 a year, or about 50 cents a week. This is not enough of a reduction to be worth the job losses and the potential impact to the environment.