Taxes going up as well
BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE — Tax Collector Teressa Phillips promised to seek raises for her employees when a last-minute change in the county budget provided raises for nearly everyone else.
Bradford commissioners approved a $69.7 million budget for 2021-22, which was more than $13 million above the current year’s budget because of grants, fund transfers and cost increases. In addition to returning two equipment purchases for public works to the budget, the board returned a 3% raise for all its employees to the budget after agreeing last week to fund a raise for the sheriff’s employees. That includes public works, fire rescue, building, planning, community development, etc.
As with the raise for the sheriff’s office, the cost will be covered by a transfer of inmate housing funds from a set-aside fund. Essentially, Sheriff Gordon Smith funded a raise for everyone — or nearly everyone.
Tax Collector Teresa Phillips was angered following the vote. Before submitting her budget to the Department of Revenue for review as required in July, she asked if the board was planning a raise for its employees, and she was told no.
Phillips’ office is paid for by the license, permit and other fees it generates. The commission is only required to fund her salary. The revenue she and her employees generate covers the rest. They generate enough to give the commission back Phillips’ salary and then some every year.
But because she formulates her own budget, it was up to her to fund the raise and justify it to the state, and she was denied the opportunity to do that.
Commissioners were blindsided by the information, having believed everyone was taken care of. There was clearly a misunderstanding of the timelines, but attorney Will Sexton said there was no one to blame. The timelines for the completion of the tax collector’s budget and the county commission’s budgets are quite different. Commissioners have until Sept. 30 to approve a budget for the new fiscal year beginning on Oct. 1.
At the time Phillips was told there would be no raises, that was the best information they had, he said.
While changes can be made to the county’s budget up to approval at the final public hearing, it has taken the commission much longer than usual to get there. A special meeting last week was held to try to answer the final questions, and then additional changes were made after that. According to the Clerk of Courts Denny Thompson, finance received final direction on the budget at 8:30 a.m. on the day of the final hearing.
Commissioner Carolyn Spooner called for earlier workshops and budget discussions next year. Commissioner Chris Dougherty called for more open communication between everyone involved.
“I think Mr. Sexton has a very good plan moving forward to try to ensure that we meet those timelines better next year, but I think this was just a year that got away from us,” Deputy Clerk Rachel Rhoden said. Sexton still predicted difficulty in reconciling the deadlines for the tax collector’s budget and the commission’s.
While DOR had already approved her budget as submitted, Phillips said she could communicate with the state and see what could be done.
“I’ll see what I can do fix it because I want everybody to get one. It’s not that I don’t want nobody to get one, but I want it to be fair. I want my girls to get a raise, too,” she said.
After commissioners requested more financial information from the constitutional officers during the first public hearing, Phillips discussed her budget in detail a letter to the commission. Fees generated in that office by tags, licenses and permits pay for operations there and at the satellite office in Melrose. While the board is responsible for funding her salary, each year she pays herself and returns unspent fee revenue to the board.
Last year, she topped herself, handing over more than $66,000, for a total of nearly $221,000 since Fiscal Year 2016. That doesn’t include any revenue she might hand the board at the end of this fiscal year.
Phillips must submit her budget to the Florida Department of Revenue for review, and it must be revised if it is found to be excessive or inadequate.
“Over the years I have taken a conservative approach in managing and spending. We use state equipment for collection of property taxes, thereby saving the county money in equipment and maintenance costs. We comparison shop and have taken on additional workload while not increasing our staff until this year,” Phillips wrote.
After postponing the addition of a new position since 2013, Phillips plans to add a new clerk in the satellite office in the coming fiscal year to process tax payments, driver’s licenses, permits, etc. The satellite serves customers from multiple counties, with the next closest driver’s license office being 20 miles away. The volume of customers has grown over the years, and the new employee will share the workload and permit the office to stay open during lunch.
Property Appraiser Kenny Clark is in a similar boat, having to submit his budget to the Department of Revenue as well as the county commission for approval. While he wasn’t present at the hearing, his letter to the commission discussed increased workload without an increase in staff, including a 40% increase in building permits, a 13% increase in ownership changes, a 7% increase in tangible personal property accounts for businesses and more than $85 million in taxable value added to the tax rolls. The office’s involvement in the state’s bypass and overpass projects also increased workload, and they are responsible for helping evaluate damages following hurricanes and other storms.
They save money by handling a few tasks in house, including GIS mapping and homestead fraud investigations. Employees are cross trained, eliminating the need to hire a mapping specialist. The public can now print its own maps, sparing the cost of replacing an expensive printer. Aerial photography is used to appraise vacant parcels. Even with the state mandating technology changes, Clark’s office has partnered with eight other counties to increase bargaining power and worked with the clerk’s IT department to find ways to avoid unnecessary expenditures.
According to Clark, his office has returned more than $300,000 in unspent funds back to the board.
Tax increase approved
Even with money transferred from inmate housing, fiscally constrained funds from the state and federal pandemic relief funds to pay for fire rescue employees, raises and capital outlay, the commission still found it necessary raise property taxes to begin building back reserves lost over the years to overspending.
The vote to raise the property tax rate to the 10-mill cap was 4-1, with Commissioner Diane Andrews voting no.
