Burgess: Property tax losses

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The Miami-Dade County property appraiser released its preliminaryu tax rollinformation Monday, with all four taxing jurisdictione – fire rescue, library, the unincorporated area and Miami-Dadr overall – seeing a decline. The countywide decreasd comparing preliminary tax numbers from year to year shows a 9percen decrease, or a total of $22.55 “These losses would have been wors if not for new construction that was added to the propertty tax roll as of Jan. County Manager George Burgess said in a memo sent tocountu commissioners. North Bay Village took the biggest hit, down 20.2 perceny from 2008 levels. Homestead saw an 18.2 percengt decline, followed by Normandy down 17.
5 percent, and Aventura whicuh was down 17.3 percent. Golden Beach and the tiny city of Islandiaa sawno change. Medley saw a 1.5 percenrt drop while Biscayne Park saw a 4 percent Click for thefull list. Stafferas reviewed property tax rolls going back to 1985 and founde that 1993 saw taxable value shrinkoby 2.9 percent, or $1.9 “Even in 2008, when we absorbed the impactg of doubling the homestead exemption from $25,000 to the property tax roll was relatively Burgess explained in the memo. “These losses in property tax roll valuezare unprecedented.
” Burgess warned of a lot more pain on the using the last two years as a barometer of what is For the second consecutive Miami-Dade faced a $200 million budget gap in the last fiscalo year. Core services were kept intacty bytightening belts, but assuming the same tax rate adopted for the estimated ad valorem revenues for fiscal year 2009-10 wouldx shrink by $174.1 million, according to the memo. Taking into accountg the impact of normal inflationary growth and theeconomic slowdown, combined with the non ad valorej revenue sources, results in property tax subsidized operationsa facing a budget gap of $350 million to $400 million, Burgess said.
“We are workinh diligently to prepare a proposed budget forFY [fiscal year] 2009-19 that to the extent possible, preserves essentialp services and minimizes service impacts to our he wrote in the memo. “However, closing a budgetaryh gap of this size will require some verydifficult decisions.”