In Your Corner

Martin County residents are rightfully concerned about the “Stormwater Service Assessment” letter they received last week. The document gives the tentative assessment and explanation of how that fee was determined. In short, if you are a resident of an unincorporated area of Martin County the Commission has decided that you will pay a “fee” for protecting your property from flooding rather than receive this “service” through your property taxes. The taxes previously paid for this service were based on a Commission established millage multiplied by the taxable value of your property. This “assessment” will replace that tax with a fee based on the estimated impervious surface area or “Equivalent Stormwater Units” of your property. For FY-2010 a monthly fee of $7.10 for each ESU (1 ESU = 3,428 square feet) is established as the minimum for a single-family residence. Larger properties will pay multiple ESUs based on the ESTIMATED amount of surface that inhibits soil absorption of rainwater. The County maintains this is a more representative way to account for the actual cost of the service – but who makes this determination?

A large percentage of Martin County residents live in associations (HOAs, POAs,COAs) that already provide for stormwater control/removal. Residents paid for this infrastructure when they purchased their property and are now responsible for its upkeep. In other words, if you live in such an association you are already paying for a large percentage of this service. We are still looking into how this will impact businesses and industry, but with the 2010 stormwater budget increased by 15-20%, chances are it will be unfavorable.

This assessment was never intended to achieve fairness, but to address the alleged need for more County revenue. As we all know, property values in Martin County have dramatically declined and all other tax revenues (sales tax, fuel tax, etc) are also down. Combined with the voter approved Constitutional Amendment limiting property tax increases, this severely restricts the Commission’s ability to generate additional revenue. Since this “assessment” isn’t legally a tax it avoids the State restrictions and significantly increases revenue without raising the voters “taxes”.

In spite of the above, our major concern is that this is just the first use of ASSESSMENTS rather than TAXES to fund required County functions. The Fire/Rescue Service has hired a consultant and briefed a plan to the County Commission that recommended moving the Fire Service (Rescue Services cannot legally be assessed) to an assessment. Since Martin County has multi-tasked our Fire/EMS personnel and use ambulances as well as fire equipment for Rescue response, the cost is difficult to separate. Their consultant performed a three-year look-back and believes the data supports assessing 60% of the total Fire/Rescue budget for Fire Service – even though there is at least a 10 to 1 ratio of EMS responses to fires. This could result in a Fire Service assessment in 2011 of over $30 million with an additional $15-20 million in property taxes for the Rescue Service.

We already know that by changing ANY property taxes to assessments, veterans, churches and all other tax reduced/exempt organizations are fully subject to these fees. We also know that the IRS will not allow assessments to be deducted from the federal income tax - two more ways residents will lose on these schemes.

What can be done? The answer is simple. Let your Commissioners know reduced revenues should equal reduced spending, not creative new ways to generate revenue from those already struggling in this economy. Immediately flood Commissioners with e-mails (Commissioners@martin.fl.us) and attend the September 15 th Commission meeting en mass. Information is available at http://www.martin.fl.us.