NOTES
1. It is always interesting to see how some of those who support the police department respond to an article raising questions as to how the department allocates resources and, if they did that allocation in a different way, the same degree of service could be maintained at a much lower cost. It does not take a genius to figure out that if a neighboring town with roughly the same population has only two policeman on the street per shift that maybe New Smyrna Beach could have decent and adequate police service with only two zones as well. Nor does it take a genius to question why, if someone tries to report a problem at the police station on U.S. 1 that they call in the policeman on patrol to come take the report rather than bother the Police Chief or one of the Commanders, or lieutenants, or sergeants. Come on, guys and gals, write in, what is so sacrosanct about how you are doing business today, and not just write that someone does not understand their business. Reducing our police zones will save a bunch of money and ultimately that may save your jobs, if not your over time. It may or not be the right decision, but let us discuss it and not call names.
2. It is always a wonderment that the public thinks change will occur simply because they are mad at the current crop of elected officials. It is also wonderment that the public expects these officials to divine what concerns them, and that they do not have to take action and inform these officials that a change of course is necessary if they expect to stay in office. Silence and inaction is not conducive to change. That old saw, that a squeaking wheel gets greased, is as good to day as it was on the lips of the person who first thought of it. One of the articles published this week was circulated by the New Smyrna Beach Citizens for Better Government. If you want change, join them and us, squeak, and squeak loudly!
1. We think the dirt road between Mission Avenue and the backside entrance to Publix and Wal Mart Mall has been definitively left unpaved as an accommodation to the auto repair and auto wash dealers in town. Every time you approach Walgreens heading North on Mission with the thought of going to that Mall you weigh the damage to the car as against the chances of making the turn signal at SR 44. It is always a tossup, but if it was graded when you went that way two weeks ago, chances are it has not been graded since, and your car might be buried in a rut. It is always a roll of the dice, and that adds interest to the decision. Life would be so dull if it were paved.
2. We agree! Some of the postings are repetitious and we wish that posters would keep them short and pithy, less than 100 words, unless there is a burning issue that just must be discussed in detail. Besides, some of the longer articles, like on the School Board, are better handled as full articles in the text and we will publish them as received, with or without a byline, if they are on an important subject. Please keep to local topics about the City, County, or State. What was most amusing this week was the statement by someone that he or she read the Shadow all the time and that it was worthless. In that case, please read a book instead.
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May 28th, 2007
DEAR JOHN
We know of the limited resources available to John Hagood, the City Manager, and to his inability to get all of the important letters written that he would like to send. So we decided to help him and provide him drafts that will simplify his tasks and free him up for important.
MEMORANDUM
To: Police Chief Pagano
From: John Hagood, City Manager
Re: Reserve Police Officers and volunteers
I plan to eliminate overtime at the police department as soon as practicable. The current system is definitely not equitable. For example, the union steward received almost $20,000 plus benefits last year which has caused the City a good deal of embarrassment. This favoritism must be ended.
Discussions with other jurisdictions have disclosed that sworn reserve officers are generally willing to work limited hours, when called to duty receive regular pay for the shift, and not time and half.
It also may be possible to expand the Citizen Patrol unit and utilize trained volunteers in a variety of roles.
Please provide your plan to effect these by the end of next week, June 9.
John Hagood
TAX CALCULATOR
There seems to be quite a discrepancy concerning the savings that each home owner will receive if real tax reform is approved by the State legislature or through spending reductions by our local officials. The number bandied about at a recent City Manager of $309 for a homestead with an assessed value of $150,000 at its recent budget meeting is simply wrong. Mr. Rubio's plan would yield relief measured in the thousands not hundreds of dollars, and there is a tax calculator available for your use by linking to a State provided site:
Craig Young published the following figures on the Shadow’s bulletin board (people's blog) for what the savings would be in New Smyrna Beach:
“Here's what the tax savings for other properties in NSB would be according to the Florida House of Representatives Property Tax calculator if we rolled back the City and County to 2001 levels;
For a homestead valued at $200,000, the tax savings would be $1163,For a homestead valued at $250,000, the tax savings would be $1475,For a homestead valued at $300,000, the tax savings would be $1787.These figures were taken from the House's website!”But there is an even easier way to calculate the savings to a homeowner in New Smyrna Beach, since we can easily calculate savings per household by simply dividing the number of households into the amount not spent and consider that a savings in that it is money that will not be extracted from you by force of law as a property tax by your elected officials.
● Police Service: Let us say that we decide to take Sheriff Johnson's offer to provide police service and determine that since Edgewater only needs two zones for a City of 22,000 that is all we need. So we extrapolate an estimated saving of about $4,000,000 which results, assuming 13,000 households, as $385 for just that one cut;
● Fire Service: Add in another million by reigning in salaries and pensions at the fire department and you add about another $100;
● Administrative vacancies: You can save $35 per household by just not filling the three front office administrative positions that have now been deliberately made vacant;
● Bert Fish: Telling Bert Fish not to tax us for CRA contributions ( $410,000 in 2006) and that is another $40, and an additional $40 for the County not matching the Bert Fish $410,000 rip-off;
● RCC 911 call service: Another $500,000 results in $50 dollars if consolidated with the County 911 service.
A Chapter of
New Smyrna Beach Tax Reform
New Smyrna Beach citizens for tax reform and reduction in government spending.
We are committed to improving the government in New Smyrna Beach. In the near term, we have a serious problem due to the failure of voters to convey to the elected officials and the City Manager that they must fix these problems that they and their predecessors have caused by spending tax money unwisely. These failures are now well known. Local governments have disrupted in our economy by continuing to collect and spend both direct and indirect taxes that bloated their coffers during the past few years. This strategy has now put the City in the position of having to reduce the size of government and stop unnecessary expenditures, for City services such as reorganization of the police and fire department and reassessment of their pay, and pensions.
However, they do not hear from you the vote/taxpayer, so they calculate the loss of support from the tiny constituency that elected them as against what those who did not vote in the last several elections are likely to do in the next election. If they do not hear from you, it will be business as usual and the corrections of these major problems will be palliative at best.
We would like you to contact them directly if you are concerned about these issues and let them know what you think, and what you want fixed. Do not depend on the Observer, News Journal, or the Sentinel to press for resolution of these issues. History has shown that they do not and will not. Remember, in the last election no paper believed it was either appropriate or relevant to tell you that a candidate they endorsed opposed building Wal-Mart on Rt. 44 because it was “in a valley,” while she did not oppose Home Depot because it was “on a hill.” Nor did they report that she had not only filed for personal bankruptcy but had reneged on her student loans.
The issues are clear and so are some of the conclusions as to what you might want to tell your elected officials to do:
Reigning in and control the police and fire pay and pensions;Reduce the number of highly paid supervisory positions in government, particularly the police and fire departments;Stop new construction, particularly the costly police and fire stations; Do not fill vacant and unneeded highly paid positions in the City Government;Fill the two soon to be vacant positions at the Utilities Commission with appointees whose agenda is to run the business as a business for the benefit of the ratepayers;Replace the Community Redevelopment Board with appointees who appreciate that they are spending taxpayers' money; andWork toward bringing businesses to the City that will provide jobs with good pay.These are just some of the issues. Your job is to inform your elected official that you are aware, and that you care. Contact them now!
Here is how.
Call City Hall: 424-2112 and ask for the Mayor, one of the other Commissioners or the City Manager. Tell them that you want them to fix these problems, and how if you have suggestions.
E-mail the Mayor, the Commissioners, and the City Manager.
James L VandergrifftMayor 386-424-2112 jbrandt@cityofnsb.com
Mayor 386-424-2112 jbrandt@cityofnsb.comJames HathawayVice Mayor 386-424-2112 jhathaway@cityofnsb.com
Vice Mayor 386-424-2112 jhathaway@cityofnsb.comRandy Richenberg Zone 1 386-424-2112 rrichenberg@cityofnsb.com
Zone 1 386-424-2112 rrichenberg@cityofnsb.comJack Grasty Zone 2 386-424-2112 jgrasty@cityofnsb.com
Zone 2 386-424-2112 jgrasty@cityofnsb.comLynne PlaskettZone 4 386-424-2112 lplaskett@cityofnsb.com
Zone 4 386-424-2112 lplaskett@cityofnsb.comJohn Hagood City Manager 386-424-2112 jhagood@cityofnsb.com
City Manager 386-424-2112 jhagood@cityofnsb.comAll you need do is determine which, or maybe all, of the issues that you want addressed and write or call them. Do it once a week. Do it in your own words with your own voice. Tell the Commissioners that if these issues are not addressed and fixed, you will vote for someone who will. Remember, to qualify as a candidate for the office of Mayor, one must live in the City. To qualify as a candidate for Commissioner, one must be a resident of that particular zone, but the vote is City wide. You can vote for any or all of them no matter where you live in the City.
If you sit back and do nothing, do not complain about either your taxes or government spending. If you read this on an E-mail, do it now.
For more information concerning these issues, visit
YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS HAVE NOT RECEIVED EMAILS OR LETTERS FROM CITIZENS EXPRESSING THEIR VIEWS ABOUT THE NEED TO REDUCE SPENDING. EMAIL THIS TO THEM AND EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK!
Email New Smyrna Beach Tax Reform at NSBTAXREFORM@gmail.com
Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to Charlie Rose, PBS rebroadcast of May 22, 2007:
Our whole history tells us that local government is far more incompetent, corrupt, [and] wasteful . . . than the national government; the national government is under much more scrutiny than local government. People are much more likely to know their Senator in Washington than their senators in Springfield or Albany . . . . The notion that the closer government is to the people the more responsive it is to the people is historically quite untrue. The closer government is to the people the more responsive it is to powerful local interests.
THE ELECTRIC RATES SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
* Adjusted to include City franchise fee of 6%
A review of electric rates for April 2007, compared to April 2005, shows some interesting data. It appears that Jacksonville Electric Authority provides the lowest rates in the state. Over the years, JEA has consistently been the low cost provider in the State and is by far the most efficiently run utility. Its utility is run as a business and without interference by politicians. The electric municipalities being compared are consistent in structure in that they are special districts and not governed by the Cities. They all contribute a franchise fee to the City’s General fund, which is built into the rate structure. New Smyrna Beach contributes 6% of gross revenues to the City. Included for comparison is Florida Power and Light, an investor owned utility whose rates on the Florida Municipal Electric Association (FMEA) chart do not include the 6% franchise tax to cities
When adjusted, FPL rates for 2005 are $92.94 per 1,000 kWh. All of the municipal utilities except for New Smyrna Beach are generating utilities. Although New Smyrna Beach generates some power, it does so only during peak demand because of the high cost of running the generators.
It is interesting to note that JEA rates increased by 10.45% from 2005 to 2007. Orlando’s rates increased by 9.31%, Gainesville’s by 15.55%, and New Smyrna Beach’s by a whopping 34.72%. Florida Power and Light’s rates increased by 15.10%. Also, it is interesting to note that in April 2005 New Smyrna Beach ranked 11th of 32 electric utilities in the State for competitive rates. In April 2007, it ranked 29th of 32. A 56% lower ranking. It is quite apparent that New Smyrna Beach has been mismanaged by the current board and General Manager. The utility is spending a lot of money on consultants and failing to purchase low cost energy for its consumers. In fact, New Smyrna Beach’s fuel adjustment increased by an unbelievable 63.62%. This is why your electric bills are so outrageous. It is time to do something about this and insist on new Commissioners who will run the utility the way it should be run—efficiently!
While the CEO was doing such a great job of running the Utility Commission into the ground, they gave him a raise and a golden parachute. He should be fired.
“Best Blog of the Week”
(Edited for grammar and punctuation)
A POTPOURRI OF CITIZEN COMMENTS IS
AGAIN PROVIDED THIS WEEK IN ORDER
FOR YOU TO GET IN TUNE WITH THE
MOOD OF OUR READERS
Wednesday, 5/23/07, 9:32 AM
The Florida Association of Counties has distributed a "communications tool kit" to help local officials influence public opinion through the media, the Internet, and volunteers. "Focus special attention on cuts to public safety and to local social services agencies and nonprofit profit community groups," the guide urges. "Send out letters to participants in your recreation programs from soccer to summer camps informing them of the impacts cuts may have on that program. “The 21-page manual instructs county officials to stage news conferences at libraries, social service agencies, and public health departments - places "where the actual impact of cuts would be felt." [Editor’s note: your tax money is paying for this!]
Wednesday, 5/23/07, 3:07 PM
The city needs to take the Charlie Crist challenge. Roll the taxes back to 2001, add inflation, add growth and that is the number. Roll the salaries and benefits back to 2001 plus inflation
Wednesday, 5/23/07, 8:03 PM
There was no money stolen from the UC. The state’s attorney did an investigation and it showed no money was stolen. Diesen and Para lost all the money. If you mean Diesen’s lobbiest friend stole the money, I guess that is true.
Saturday, 5/26/07, 4:56 AM
Bring back my Dad. I guess it would be the old fashioned Dad to many. But when he was around years ago, Integrity and Honesty was the NORM. Now it is anything but that. It has become let me see how much I can cheat the system and/or the Taxpayers, Wow shame on the people that do this now, how can our elected officials look you in the eye anymore. Get a life and think back how our great Country was founded, by the people for the people, and based on trust and HONESTY....
REDEMPTION
The problems have been defined over the last few months and there have been a number of stories about each issue which described the mis-spent money and the questionable decisions made by our elected officials in both collecting and spending our tax money. Remember that in each jurisdiction, and particularly at the County level, the people who made these decisions that have proved costly and have distorted the tax base needlessly are for the most part still in office. For example, the City manager of Port Orange was the prime architect for many of the decisions to keep and spend the increases from property tax, and remember that our State Representative, Dorothy Hukill, was the Mayor Port Orange during the worst of the spending binge (2004). She now says she sees the need for property tax cuts, but she surely did not see any reason when assessments were sky rocketing to put the money in a reserve account rather than spend it. Here in New Smyrna Beach, two of the worst offenders, Bill Rogers and Larry Sweett are gone, but three of the Commissioners who appointed the wrecking crew at the Utilities Commission and participated in the spending orgy for two of the three years are still in office. The current City Manager may have been privy to the goings on of Frank Roberts, but he did not call the shots, and knowing about bad decisions being made is not the same as making bad decisions. Jon Williams, the newly appointed city manager of Edgewater, is a tabla rosa and gets none of the blame.
The issues to be addressed are stark for all three cities, and in New Smyrna Beach, they are plain to see. The way to fix them is to cut spending. The $64 question is whether those who got us into this mess are big enough to admit their mistakes, and fix them as best they can.
A good start in New Smyrna would be to:
* Reign in and control police and fire pay and pensions;
* Reduce the number of senior supervisory positions, particularly in the police and fire departments;
* Terminate construction of new buildings, particularly the costly police and fire stations
* Not fill vacant and unneeded senior positions in the City Government;
* Fill the two soon to be vacant positions at the Utilities Commission with appointees whose agenda is to run the business as a business for the benefit of the ratepayers;
* Replace the Community Redevelopment Board with appointees who appreciate they are spending taxpayers' money; and
* Work toward bringing businesses to New Smyrna that require skilled highly paid employees to the City.
Our current Commissioners can address these problems and fix them, but they remain silent as to their intentions and not only do not lead, but their public statements would not inspire a toad. We are entitled to leaders who tell us they want to fix the problems that face us, as well as how they intend to fix them on a limited budget. Remember, the State might not fix the property tax inequities, and if it does, there is nothing but the taxpayers to prevent local elected officials from levying new taxes to replace property tax losses. They have the power to levy other taxes. The only brake on that power is the fear of being booted ignominiously from office by the electorate, and that is you!
The biggest problem is the School Board and Bert Fish Hospital. They take about 50% of the property tax today, are not fully accountable, and have not indicated that if assessments on property are reduced that they will not raise the millage rate to make up the difference. (See article above) It would be nice if these tax “poo bahs” would tells us what they have in mind, and even better, if they said they would try a little belt tightening to lower our property tax burden.
Earning redemption is possible if all of these officials fixed the problems they have caused by over spending. Even trying would earn good marks for good deeds.
COLUMBUS AVENUE FIREHOUSE REVISITED
The City Manager and his bosses, the City Commission, should rethink the validity of the justification for spending $5 million plus on a new Third street Fire Station. There is none! Especially in a time when money is scarce. They need to take a position that supports the best interest of their constituency for a change, and not the Fire Department lobby. No one has suggested that even a run down fire station cannot be rebuilt. Nor has any one suggested that adequate fire and police service be compromised. The first issue is whether the Columbus Avenue fire house should be expanded and refurbished or whether a new fire house should be built elsewhere at greater expense. The second issue concerns the definition of adequate service, whether the objective is realistic, and whether the taxpayers are willing to fund that level of service. Thus the question becomes, is it more practical and economical to up-grade an existing facility or remove a valuable piece of property from the tax rolls, (already done) losing tax revenue, to meet an objective that may not save more lives and is terribly expensive? There is no evidence that supports the claim of saving more lives.
Few people, who live on Columbus Avenue, if any, moved there before the fire station was established and few can complain that they were not aware of the additional noise associated with living next to a fire station. The only additional noise is when the engine comes and goes, sometimes leaving with siren and lights, but mostly without. The Shadow is privy to an inspection tour recently made by two of our prominent concerned citizens during the middle of the day. There was no fire truck, no one staffing the station, the doors were wide open, and there was no indication that the fire truck and crew were on a fire fighting sortie, or a doughnut run. It was the impression of these citizens that refurbishing and upgrading this station could easily satisfy fire department needs, as opposed to building a new Taj Mahal station, as does the School Board. The County fire station in Silver Sands would be the first responder to the Sea Woods area of South Atlantic Avenue anyway and Columbus Avenue is closer to Minorca than the Putt-Putt site.
It is time for our Commissioners to get off the pot, so to speak, and start leading the City staff toward frugality and the cost effective expenditure of our tax money. This project is in your zone Mr. Richenberg, why don’t you show us what you are made of and take the lead, or would that cause problems at home?
PROPERTY TAX INCREASES
Stupid us. While we thought that, the State legislature was stalled in lowering the property tax rates, who noticed that they quietly raised the School Board tax by 7.2%, which, since the school tax which is currently roughly 40% of the total property tax, will now be raised o include the additional 7.2%. The 3% cap is only applicable to increases in assessed value but the School Board and Bert Fish will certainly increase the millage rate in order to keep the same flow of money they will lose on the assessed value of non-homestead protected property. The millage rate is not capped! OK, this seems like Greek, but we can clear it up the gobbledygook with an example or two.
1. Let us say in 2006 the just value appraisal for your property was $300,000 but your homestead exemption and Save-our-home has capped your taxable assessed value at $100,000. The current millage rate is 19.54 mills and you pay a tax of $1954 on your $100,000 homestead exempted property. Your “just value” assessment, $300,000 shows what the property appraiser believes is the fair market value of your property.
2. Your neighbor bought an identical house next door in 2005 for $300,000, and applied for homestead exemption. His property was given a tax value equal to 85% of his purchase price ($300,000 minus 45,000= $255,000) and he or she has a $25,000 exemption for 2006 which yields a taxable value of $230,000. This resulted in a tax bill of about $4,500 in 2006.
3. Now, the fair market value of your neighbors house and your house in this real estate market declined by about 20% and both are now valued for January 2007 at $240,000. Logic suggests that if the millage rate is not changed, your tax will not change since you are paying on an assessed value of only $100,000. However, logic does not always prevail in this arena, and your assessed value may be increased by the 3% allowed by the cap to &103,000. While his tax will go down by 20%, and he will pay only about $3,500 instead of $4,500 ($300,000x 0.8=$240000, $240,000x0.85=$204,000, $204,000- $25,000=179,000x 0.1954=$3,498). If the millage rate remains, the same he saves about $1,000 and you may pay about $12 more than last year.
Now we go to the School Board. The School Board still 'needs' the money they collected last year plus the 7.2% mandated by the State. The School Board's share of the 19.54 millage rate was 7.685 and Bert Fish took 2.216, for about 9.901 mills, which is half of the property tax rate you paid last year. This would not be touched by the current actions of the State legislature. Bert Fish also 'needs” the money so it can tell the newspapers that it runs in the black. Well this puts tax reform in a negative light because the School Board was mandated to collect another 7.2%. By the way, it probably spent that money last week by giving a 5% pay increase to teachers. If these institutions do not cut their spending, over half (in fact, almost 60% of what you think you will save), will be recovered by raising the millage rate from 19.54 to about 25.00 mills. This increase will be to “compensate” the School Board and Bert Fish for the loss of revenue from devalued non-homestead property. So, instead of the homesteader paying $1954 and the non-homesteader paying $3,500 in the example above, if the School Board and Bert Fish must make up a combined loss of $1000, because the assessed property value has gone down on non homestead assessed property, both the homestead and non-homestead owners will each pay an extra $500 in taxes if there is a the new millage rate. It might be even worse if they decide to collect even more money since there would be nothing to prevent them from raising their share of the millage rate even higher. All you can do is get mad, or replace them at their next election. The School Board plans to give the Superintendent another big pay raise on top of her current $200,000+, pay, and benefits. You might tell them to cut expenditures and that this is not the year to raise administrators’ salaries even if deserved, and perhaps teachers pay raises should have been limited to the cost of living inflation value of 4%. But that too would be a novel idea!
One could argue that this would be a more equitable result than the homesteader getting all of the benefits would. Nevertheless, it is not what we think you expected from property tax reform. Just for a fun thought, the city could recover all of what it might lose with; say a tax district for fire services, if you let them get away with it. If you want to see how this works, go to the Volusia County website, go to finance, and look for the County fire tax districts that are included in the total property tax component for Volusia County. Rise up and be heard!
FLASH: On Friday the School Board's financial guru proposed a $10,000,000 cut mainly though cut backs in personnel. Part of the proposal apparently included a statement that the 7.2% mandated State increase would generate about $18.000,000 but that had already been allocated for a new elementary school and State mandated reduction in class size. Hearings will be held and several groups will oppose some or all or of the cuts. If we have figured correctly, assuming all of the cuts proposed are adopted, this would leave the School Board $8,000,000 short, assuming no other increased costs in fuel or supplies, which still means a significant increase in the School Board millage rate.
ANOTHER FLASH: The Florida Association of Counties playbook provides our elected and appointed officials with talking points to support the sky is falling theme for not reducing government spending, and predicting the dire circumstances if significant reductions in spending are required. To the rescue comes the House Majority Office, Representative Marty Bowen, the House Majority Leader. THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HAS NOW GIVEN US, THE CITIZENS, TALKING POINTS TO REBUT THE COUNTIES AND CITIES! Go to the LINK provided and read what they have to say.
“Hello all,
I would like to share with you a recent experience I have had with the Volusia County School system. Several months ago through a contact at Disney I was able to secure a large computer donation for my son's school, Sacred Heart School in New Smyrna. Recently, Disney has again made these computers available and since my son will be attending public high school next fall, I decided to extend the offer to his new school. I should also add that several public schools in neighboring counties have also taken advantage of this offer.
I contacted the high school and the offer was well received, however, I was informed that it would need to be cleared through the MIS area. Well, the IT” professionals" at Volusia County Schools have declined the offer stating that these computers would cause a security risk to their network. Folks, the computers are provided completed wiped and restore CD is provided upon request. Additionally, if they truly believe that there would be a security risk to the network then I'm sure the computers could be used as standalone in classrooms, for PowerPoint presentations, even for kindergarten, etc. Again, I would like to reiterate that several neighboring counties, Orange, Osceola, and Seminole County schools have taken advantage of this offer - why not then Volusia County?
I have to say that with all the talk about the lack of funds and the need for budget cuts, I was dismayed that they would decline this offer and truthfully, I have a difficult time accepting their rationale. I am in the process of preparing a letter to Margaret Smith and the entire School Board to express my concern.”
