Florida Tax Watch Report is up

Florida Tax Watch's report on Improving Transparency and Accountability in Escambia County Government (.pdf warning) is up on the Tax Watch website.

It looks to be about 40 pages long, so I'll have to wait until this weekend to be able to read it, but Rick Outzen notes on his blog that the report "finds that revenue and spending increases since 2000 are 'unsustainable.'" Not shocking.

Hello, TaxWatch? Hi, it's me, Patrick...

I've been sort of half-heartedly following the budgeting process for Escambia County (see Rick Outzen's blog items about the budget here). What I'm really eager to see is this year's TaxWatch report on Escambia County, but for some reason it's been delayed.

Back on February 4th, Florida Tax Watch indicated in a press release (.pdf warning) that the report would be out at the end of March. I sent an e-mail recently, inquiring about the status of the report, and received a reply from Kaye Kendrick, Senior VP for Research, stating that they are "still continuing to work out a few details," and that, although there is no official release date, I should "check back with [TaxWatch] during the second week of June."

Hopefully it will come in time to be considered in the budgeting process.

Okay, so I lied...

I promised to "show my work" and post about how I was figuring out whether to vote in favor of or against Amendment 1. I didn't. Hey, I'm sorry, some stuff came up (some good, some REALLY bad). So, instead of telling you my whole thought process, I'll just tell you that I decided to vote "no."

Why?

Well, for one thing, I kept hearing from supporters that "Amendment 1 isn't perfect, but it's a start." Well, that's what I call damning by faint praise. "This is crap, but it's slightly less crappy than some other crap" ain't exactly a strong sell in my world. Particularly when you're talking about something as important as taxes. And I'm tired of the knee-jerk argument that "government wastes too much money" and "tell those bastards they'll just have to tighten their belt more." Well guess what, WE'RE THE BASTARDS. Our government is not some distant, alien entity. It's us. You and me. So if we think our government is bloated and inefficient, it's up to you and me to do something about it. I don't believe that just closing the purse is the right way to do things. Rather, we need to focus on being more efficient, combining redundant services, eliminating unnecessary staff positions, etc. And that will be painful. We have hard decisions to make.

So let's get started.

Amendment 1? Will it survive the courts?

Like a lot of folks, I'm mulling over the "Amendment 1" property-tax proposal in advance of the January 29 vote. I think that I have a pretty good understanding of how it is supposed to work. The easy part is the bit about doubling the homestead exemption from $25,000 to $50,000 for primary residences. Considering that the original $25,000 homestead exemption was put in place years ago, and, when indexed for inflation, would exceed $50,000 today anyway, this part seems like a no-brainer.

The "Save our Homes" portability bit is the poser. I think there is a lot of confusion about SOH in the first place, much less making it "portable." For those who aren't aware, SOH was a state constitutional amendment approved in 1992 (effective 1995), which caps increases in a home's assessed value for tax purposes at 3% per year or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less. (See Florida Statute Sec. 193.155 here). So, as your home's value (hopefully) increases over time, it's actual market value can outstrip it's taxable value. The longer you own your home, the greater this disparity can be. Ultimately, people can come to feel "trapped" in their homes, because if they sell and move into a new house, they lose the benefit of that valuation disparity. The "portability" part of the proposed "Amendment 1" is designed to allow homeowners to carry that benefit with them into their new home. If you move into a more expensive home, you'd carry the dollar-amount of the previous assessed value with you into the new house. If you move into a less expensive home, the percentage of the previous taxable value vis-a-vis the market value would be transferred.

Seems like a great idea, but, as always, there are some problems. The Orlando Sentinel has a good explanation of some of those problems in its Sunday edition today. They point out that the amendment may well not pass constitutional muster, as it unfairly benefits long-time Florida residents over new home buyers, which could improperly affect interstate commerce.

I'm still undecided, but leaning at this point toward voting "no." I will continue to post as I hash this thing out in my head in the next few days.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute, I always say...

Budget wonkery

A few random thoughts about the budget worksheet (.pdf file) handed out at the County Commission budget workshop this week:

We were budgeting over $160,000 for "out of county travel?" Where were these people going? Good on them for cutting that expense. Also $9,990 for seminars and "meals, plaques and ceremonies" for the BCC. Did anyone know they had budgeted for this crap in the past? Well, I didn't.

$700 for the County Administrator's Blackberry actually doesn't seem all that high to me. If it makes him more efficient, I don't really have a problem with him keeping that.

The county attorney has chopped $100,000 out of their budget for outside counsel. I'm curious if there is anything left in that budget item.

What the hell is the "Merit System Protection Board?"

We were paying a federal lobbyist $67,500? My first reaction is, "well THAT was dumb," but, on second thought, I'm not so sure...

Facilities management looks to take a pretty big hit, with $865,000 proposed to be cut from their budget, including the entire construction crew.

I hate the idea of eliminating funding for the school nursing program. Yes, it is a $120,000 savings, but considering how little we allocate toward healthcare in this county, eliminating one of the few sources of healthcare for our children seems short sighted. And in view of the overall budget, $120K doesn't seem like all that much.

I hope that the commissioners follow through with the idea of returning Lakeview and the community clinics to full funding. (Actually, I hope they can find a way to INCREASE funding for these items).

Overall it looks like the commission is working hard to "tighten their belts" with these budget cuts. It's a painful process. I hope we see some good results.

Now, how about those proposals for combining redundant city and county operations? We could save a TON more money there if we could agree to do it.

Okay, this is just crazy...

Warren Buffet's taxable income for 2006: $46 million
Warren Buffet's income tax rate in 2006: 17.7%

Warren Buffet's secretary's taxable income for 2006: $60,000.00
Warren Buffet's secretary's income tax rate for 2006: 30%

Even Warren Buffet says this is nuts.

Additional source.

See, this is the kind of crashing wave of cynical realization that washes me down the beach, back to the foaming left-wing liberal sea from which I was beginning to crawl...

Uninsured workers not just a local problem

I just read an article in the newspaper of the town in Kansas where I grew up. Other than different names, it could be a re-print of the article in today's Pensacola News Journal about the working poor and the lack of access to healthcare.

It seems to me more and more evident that we HAVE to get a nation-wide solution to this problem.

Florida's low tax burden

A very interesting editorial in the Daytona Beach News Journal discusses the fact that Florida is, and has been, in the bottom 25% of all states as far as its local-state tax burden. As the writer notes:

Only 12 states bear a state-local tax burden lower than Florida, according to the 2007 Bureau of Economic Analysis (Department of Commerce). Those 12 states are Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.
. . .

The findings for Florida show that in a 37-year period, Florida's average ranking is 41.

The writer's thesis seems to be that Florida already has an extremely low tax burden when compared to other states, which brings more business and population here, but with no clear revenue plan for dealing with the influx of population we are simply digging a deeper hole for ourselves.

When compared to other states, does it really seem like Florida has a tax crisis? Our governor and state legislators seem to think so. I'm not so sure...