BY TRACY LEE TATE
Special to the Times
LAKE BUTLER—Have you ever wondered about who the principal employers and taxpayers in the county are? The names are familiar to all, but few know who’s who and how they rank in the numbers.
Thanks to the work of Clerk of Court Kellie Hendricks Rhoades and her staff, there is a simple way to obtain this information – in a document produced annually, this year called the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. The report has a wealth of knowledge about not only the county government and its finances but also a clearly presented snapshot of the demographics of the county and its population. The figures given are for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2022, but still give a clear idea of who provides most of the jobs in Union County.
The employers in the county are all business enterprises and most are a part of the county’s governmental bodies or locally owned businesses. The Top Ten are: Department of Corrections – RMC (812 employees), Department of Corrections – UCI (565), Centurion – RMC (197), Union County School Board (385), Pritchett Trucking (295), West Frasier (140), Union County Government (140), Centurion UCT (65), Lake Butler Hospital (103) and PRIDE Enterprises (170. These employers have a total of 2,872 employees, in a county with an estimated workforce of only 3,944.
As to who pays the most in ad valorem (property) taxes, the big spender is Florida Power and Light, a utility company who paid owns property with a taxable value of $31,706,441. Weyerhaeuser Company, an agricultural enterprise, has property with a taxable value of $14,247,595. Another utility, Clay Electric Co-op, owns property with a taxable value of $12,598,382, while West Fraser Southeast, Inc. owns land valued at $5,663,017. Roberts Site Development, a real estate and development company, holds land valued at $3,190,990, while Windstream Florida, Inc., another utility company, owns $3,167,408 worth of Union County property. CVS, a retail business, holds property valued at $1,960,243. Lake Butler LLC, classified as industrial, has property valued at $1,828,058. The other retail business on the list, Medlink Management Services, has property valued at $1,623,8885. Last on the list is another utility, Florida Gas Transmission Co., with property valued at $1,299,079.
The above property owners have land with a total taxable value of $77,285,098 and account for 24.74% of the percent of the total taxable value of property in the county.
Good information such as this helps people be aware of what is happening in their county and where it is happening.
