BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
Bradford County commissioners voted unanimously to collect non-ad valorem assessments for firefighting and emergency medical services beginning with this year’s tax bills.
The Feb. 15 resolution approved the method of collection, but not the actual assessments. County Manager Scott Kornegay engaged a consultant last year to study and develop a rate schedule. Once that information is available, commissioners will need to decide whether to continue moving forward and how much to collect.
Commissioners are turning to special assessments because even with a property tax rate of 10 mills, fire and EMS remain underfunded. If new assessments are approved, they have a stated desire to reduce property taxes.
Comments after the resolution was approved were brief. Citizens in opposition included Tommy Tatum of Tatum Brothers Sawmill. He questioned the fairness of assessing all commercial buildings equally, saying older structures built by his father would be charged the same amount per square foot as the mill itself — the same amount as commercial buildings worth millions of dollars.
Tatum said he would tear the old buildings down, but he would be bitter about doing it.
“It’s your job to do things fair, and when you take a building that’s worth absolutely nothing and tax it the way you do something that’s worth millions, you might say, it’s not right, and you know it’s just not right,” he said. “I think when you do something that ain’t right, it always come back to haunt you.”
A fair tax, according to Tatum, would have been the electrical franchise fee, but as commissioners reiterated, Clay Electric did not share Florida Power and Light’s willingness to cooperate. Passing a franchise fee that only some electric customers would pay was not fair, according to commissioners.
The franchise fees would have helped fill but not close the funding gap in the fire and EMS budgets. They could have reduced the amount of the assessments, which is still unknown. A prior study from 2019 revealed a combined cost of more than $300 per residential dwelling unit and 40 cents per square foot for nonresidential buildings. Commissioners could have lowered those amounts.
Since they couldn’t get the franchise fees approved, Commissioner Danny Riddick said he hopes the ability to lower taxes will offset the cost of the new assessments for many.
Commissioner Diane Andrews said she has seen the buildings at the sawmill Tatum discussed, and she agreed it would be “ridiculous” to “tax” them. They were shelters, not buildings, she said, hoping there would be leeway to make adjustments in those situations.
The commission’s vote was 4-0 in favor of the resolution, with Commissioner Kenny Thompson absent.
