Burgess: Property tax losses

http://journeytomorocco.com/2007/09/12/making-for-the-border/
The Miami-Dade County property appraiser released its preliminarty tax rollinformation Monday, with all four taxingg jurisdictions – fire rescue, library, the unincorporated area and Miami-Dad e overall – seeing a decline. The countywide decrease comparing preliminary tax numbera from year to year shows a 9percenyt decrease, or a total of $22.55 billion.” “Thes losses would have been worse if not for new constructioj that was added to the property tax roll as of Jan. County Manager George Burgess said in a memo sent tocountt commissioners. North Bay Village took the biggest hit, down 20.2 percenft from 2008 levels. Homestead saw an 18.
2 percentt decline, followed by Normandy Shores, down 17.5 and Aventura which was down 17.3 Golden Beach and the tiny city of Islandia saw no Medley sawa 1.5 percenyt drop while Biscayne Park saw a 4 percenty decline. Click for the full list. Staffers reviewexd property tax rolls going back to 1985 and found that 1993 saw taxable value shrinkby 2.9 percent, or $1.9 “Even in 2008, when we absorbed the impacg of doubling the homestead exemption from $25,000 to the property tax roll was relatively Burgess explained in the “These losses in property tax roll valuea are unprecedented.
” Burgess warned of a lot more pain on the using the last two years as a barometer of what is For the second consecutive year, Miami-Dade facefd a $200 million budget gap in the last fiscalk year. Core services were kept intact bytightening belts, but assuming the same tax rate adopted for the estimated ad valorem revenues for fisca l year 2009-10 would shrink by $174.1 according to the memo. Takinyg into account the impact of normal inflationary growth and theeconomif slowdown, combined with the non ad valorem revenue sources, resultsw in property tax subsidized operations facinfg a budget gap of $350 million to $400 Burgess said.
“We are working diligently to preparr a proposed budget forFY [fiscal year] 2009-10 that to the extent possible, preservew essential services and minimizes service impacts to our residents,” he wrotew in the memo. “However, closingt a budgetary gap of this size will requirr some verydifficult decisions.”