Our newspaper column is a product of various authors, each contributing

items of information based on the results of their volunteer hours spent with the various departments within the county government.

These items are gathered together and edited by a central group called

The Communications Committee, who then pass the article on to our Vice-President

And President for final editing. This entirely volunteer approach has generally

been successful, however, there are times when we really struggle for ideas of interesting to you, our readers. Therefore, we encourage all of our members and readers to let us know about taxpayer issues that concern them, and invite you to contribute information that could potentially be incorporated into this column. Your experiences with and concerns about our taxing authorities, and whether you believe your taxes are put to good use, are matters that we may not know about and therefore address.

***

On all our annual tax statements, there are items called Commission MSTUs

(Municipal Service Taxing Units), which are collected and spent to provide lighting, recreation and street maintenance and improvements for specific areas of the county. There are nine Commission MSTUs in this county, divided by regions such as Northern, Central, Southern, and Western. There are seven employees, all in the Northern, Northern Parks, and Northern Recreation MSTUs. According to the county budget document, the other ones do not have any employees.

A brief review of the entire budget for these MSTUs shows their proposed

total for this year is $2,636,544. This is an increase of $163,256 (6.6%) over last year.

There is a greater than 10% increase in salaries being proposed, as well as other contractual services, road material and supplies, land purchases, and other grants and aids. These monies are spent pretty much at the discretion of the various commissioners who represent these areas with the approval of a majority of the commision. A further breakdown is as follows:

$1,841,969 (Jensen/ Rio Areas) increase of $183,128

$ 103,050 (Stuart Area) increase of $17,250

$ 293,025 (Hobe Sound Area) decrease of $23,066

$ 161,500 (Port Salerno Area) increase of $13,500

$ 237,000 (Indiantown/Palm City) increase of $43,174

The Jensen Beach/Rio Area MSTU budget is so large because it includes the

North County Recreation Department which accounts for $596,593 of that total. Also, there is an item of $971,376 listed for improvements other than building. We cannot find a description of what this amount is going to be spent on 'other than buildings', but we will look into it.

***

A review of the County Appraiser's proposed budget for 2001 by one of our

Volunteers (a retired money manager) shows a proposed increase in expenditures of $135,570. This figure pretty much covers salary increases. Most of the departments in the county had their salaries reviewed over 3 years ago, but nothing had been done at the Appraiser's office until recently. The county had a study performed that prompted them to move the County Appraiser's staff salaries more in line with county and private practitioners (real estate industry).

The entire proposed budget of $2.3 million, includes a request for one

Additional employee. This is the first request of this nature in eight years We found The County Property Appraiser's office to be an efficient and well-run department.

***

In the Martin County Commission meeting of July 18th, County Attorney Gary

Oldehoff presented a "Final Report" of litigation activities handled by his office. In a voluminous report and 45 minute presentation, Mr. Oldehoff succeeded in profiling the types of litigation which beset both our county and others, drawing interesting comparisons between Martin and Lee, Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Brevard counties, to illustrate that we generally argue over similar matters. If this approach was taken to appease the commission, it apparently had limited success, for the response from some was that these litigation costs

were a reflection of our commitment to preserve the environment. Other

commissioners felt the report was incomplete. Whether or not the $3 million spent on current litigation is appropriate was not answered by this report.

In an earlier column on the matter, the Taxpayer's Association compared

litigation costs with those of neighboring counties. We looked at legal

budgets and the relationships between legal costs and population. The

comparisons we made showed litigation expenses in Martin County to be

exorbitant. We then asked the County Attorney to better account for in-house

litigation costs (which he states he is doing).

We also confirmed with him the importance of being aggressively proactive in anticipating problems and potential risks of litigation (which the report states he is doing).

Perhaps all commissioners would have been more pleased with the report format had it contained a complete summary of litigation, plus a comparison of such costs with other counties and a summary of wins vs. losses to indicate if Martin County has the savvy to know when to fight when to compromise and when to fold.