Over
the weekend I received a Notice of Public Hearing regarding a potential new
assessment for both storm water and road repair fees. It explained that
effective October 1, 2015, the Village intends to charge each property $200.00-
raising a total of slightly over $200,000 (for simplicity, I will round up the
numbers used for explanation). The description offered was, and I quote, "The purpose of the assessment is to pay the
cost of the master plan and estimate costs of repairs and improvements related
to storm water/ road repairs and improvements."
The
purpose of this post today is hopefully meant to engage our readers here on the
subject and to stimulate conversation. I attended the Commission meeting, and
most of them, in which this was briefly discussed. However, I still have
questions that have not yet been answered. Here are the first couple that comes
to mind:
1)
Is this a one-time assessment or one that will repeat annually?
2)
If so, for how many years?
3)
What is the cost of this "master plan?"
4)
Are there any guarantees that, after paying the cost of "the plan,"
we will receive more money from the State for these repairs?
5)
And if so, how much more than the master
plan fee already paid?
Let
me now take a step back to mention that I may be missing the point here in that
I haven't researched this subject in great detail. I assume that others reading
here may be in the same position. What I did not see in the Notice nor hear
from the Commissions explanation was the "master vision" behind this
potential assessment. What will we, the taxpayers be seeing /getting for our
money spent? Will it be tangible improvements or just the cost of some master
plan?
As
far as the storm water issue, I don't think we need to spend a lot of money on
some plan to learn that we need to both clean and maintain our drainage systems
regularly. Do you? This seems to be a
common sense issue.
Yesterday, I was driving through North Miami and into
Biscayne Park just after the heavy rains
during the early afternoon. The heavy rains, something we haven't seen for
weeks, were most welcomed and needed...but let's stay on point here. In
driving through North Miami I noticed that they have a real problem with street
flooding. I was glad that I have a higher than normal ground clearance on my
car!
Once
I got into Biscayne Park, I made an extra effort (thinking about this proposed assessment)
to drive and look up and down our streets and took the "long way
home" (if such a thing can be said for our small community). What I saw
were standing puddles, but it was a major difference from the small "no
wake lakes” I drove through in North Miami. Now, did I drive up and down every
street… the answer is no.
As for the road repair fees, again what
is the master plan? Are we to get, from our assessment, brand new roads
with a fresh black topcoat? Or, are we to pay $105K for repairing pot holes?
In my opinion, part of the problem with government, both large and small,
is that they tend to sprawl, often beyond their means with the taxpayer always
relied upon to pick up the tab. In large government, banks have been
deregulated to the extend that they have become leveraged casinos that required
a taxpayer "bail-out” when their bets didn't pay off. In Europe,
situations are ever more dire. They have crossed the line of trust by
"bailing- in" bank depositors (by a certain amount of their savings)
when their banks required capital. When
or where does it end?
We have a sky high millage rate will little, really no tanigible room for
further increases. We've already played that hand over the years. I get that. I
do find it nessessary to mention, for balance, that we did realize some saving
with the choice to outsource our sanitation service. And that tax relief was
welcomed… though it looks now as if it may have been short lived.
Personally, I would like to see and hear from our Commission and staff,
new innovations and efficiencies discussed towards smaller government. And over time, that some of those saving be
returned to our taxpayers through a lower millage rate.
To circle back to an earlier comment, I will admit that indeed I may be
missing the point here. But, I do think it is important to understand what
plans and concepts our leadership has in proposing new assessments or taxes that
touches all of us.
Milton Hunter
Biscayne Park Resident
Milt,
ReplyDeleteThanks for asking the right questions. Please keep coming to Commission meetings, and feel free to discuss with Heidi. She reads this blog, and maybe she'll answer a few of the specific questions here. I don't know if she'll think it's the right way to discuss it. I myself will hold off commenting here, out of consideration for the highest level of propriety.
Fred
Hey Fred,
DeleteI wanted to get this topic out there (prior to the May meeting) in that I feel others may have the same questions as I do. Raising taxes has always been considered the "low hanging fruit"...
I supported the idea of outsourcing and efforts of annexation in that I have studied our fiscal shortfalls and understand that something needs to be done/changed/fixed, whatever. Status quo is not going to get us where we want to be.
Milt,
DeleteYou highlight an important problem and dilemma. It's true that raising taxes is low-hanging fruit for municipalities, but it's also all we have. We don't have commercial pockets to pick (yet), so it really comes down to taxing ourselves as homeowners. We do this with ad valorem and non ad valorem taxes. And don't think there isn't resistance to that. Even with those taxes, we barely get by, and we certainly don't attend to larger municipal responsibilities, like drainage and the condition of our streets. This is impossible on the revenue sources we have.
We have nothing to sell. We don't charge for parking, although some have said we should. We do charge for use of recreational facilities, although that doesn't result in a great deal of income for us. We charge for permits, too. We can give traffic tickets, and we do, but this results in very little money coming back to BP.
We find ourselves wishing someone else, like the State or County, would give us money, but this is just a diversion of tax money someone else collects. It should not leave us with much of a feeling of self-respect or autonomy. And it's not reliable.
You might not be satisfied that we have squeezed every dollar out of our budget, and you might be right, but we're pretty tight. I'm not sure anything material could happen by squeezing the last dollars you or anyone else could find. There certainly isn't enough there to get the important tasks (drainage, streets) done.
Outsourcing has helped us. We have stabilized Village services, saved the Village money, and saved ourselves as residents money. Unfortunately, few of us have suggested that they continue to give the Village what they say they would happily have paid for the old expensive sanitation service, so we could do different tasks. It would be a nice and progressive gesture if we all did that. THAT gets repairs to happen.
What we can hope for is a gradual increase in property values, which then also leaves us hoping some Village residents will move away, so their homes can be acquired by new residents who will pay more taxes. Not exactly a politically correct campaign, but it does result in a higher level of ad valorem taxation.
I have also been a proponent of asking Village residents to donate toward improvement in Village value and values. Specifically, I have asked residents to donate to various specific public sculpture acquisitions, and I even asked the Commission to agree to charge residents $8 per home per year for public art to enhance the Village. If you think that was a no-brainer success, think again.
So yeah, taxes are low-hanging fruit. But they're the right place to start, while we simultaneously make municipal functioning trimmer and more efficient. We're about maxed out in both places. So what do you suggest? Do you have a better idea than the $200 worth of assessments? The goal should be good drainage and maintained streets. How do you get us there?
Fred
Fred,
DeleteHey, I thought you were staying out of this one. Couldn't help yourself? [kidding]
I wish I had all the easy answers. One way to look at it is that the trend has been to increase taxes (until we hit the ceiling) and now switch to assessments. Tax and Spend. That's one way to look at it.
Another way is to consider that our Business Model is broken and no longer works in todays world. I have had this conversation with Village Managers (past and present) And both have said "we're running lean, etc." And I do not doubt this fact based on our established way of doing business. I take that to mean that we've squeezed just about as much as we can from our staff and resources.
But what if it's still not enough?
My opinion is that we have always been much more reactive than proactive in dealing with issues. And we're not alone in this. But, at some point, we may need to consider a New Approach when it comes to a functional business model based on 1079 homes with no commercial tax base... as you say, yet.
As in the animal kingdom, those who fail to evolve become extinct.
Additional:
DeleteI really didn't answer your last question. Sorry. It's not just the $200.00 in assessments, it's what they would go towards, a master plan only. $200.00 X 1079 homes= $215,800.00.
What could we do ourselves with $215,800.00? How many new drains could be installed? How much road repair work?
That point needs to be made and considered, IMO.
Milton, I don't see many options. This work involves the maintenance of our infrastructure and it is directly tied up to our property values. If we let our roads deteriorate more -and we have so many streets fill with potholes now- the whole look and desirability of the Village will suffer. Same for storm drainage and flood mitigation.
ReplyDeleteThe truth is we live in a small community incorporated as a city that only allows private property and no commercial nor industrial properties inside its boundaries. We probably should do better to compare ourselves to some Homeowners associations or Condominium associations, some have roughly the same number of units as Biscayne Park.
I used to own a couple of condos and every month you get to pay a maintenance fee, that is on top of the city, county and state taxes; and then at the end of the year, most often than not, you get a special assessment for big repairs that's hundreds or thousands of dollars more. You have to do this to keep the whole condo property values from deteriorating and everybody pays or get a lien.
Through the years the add-valorem tax system has become a misnomer, it used to be that properties were taxed accordingly to their market value, these days they are taxed according to a complicated and illogical formula that makes some homes pay half what other homes of equal value pay. As a consequence there is no way to collect money to pay for what it is needed to maintain infrastructure. Most cities get away by taxing commercial or industrial properties, we don't have that luxury here.
And how can we get a smaller government? It is not like we have hundreds of employees sitting at city hall collecting a salary. I think we're a little under staffed and most city employees are going above and beyond their office hours to dedicate their time and effort to the Village. To me this is both surprising and inspiring, maybe we've something special here...
And to end my comment, when I hear the smaller government mantra it makes me think of Ulysses and the Sirens. Ulysses had to tie himself to the mast or else the Sirens will make him crash his vessel into the reefs. We need, like Ulysses, to bind ourselves into the future and do what it is needed to do ignoring the beautifully promising song of "reduce waste and don't spend money", like somehow everything will be done for us.
Jorge
Hi Jorge,
DeleteYou make excellent points... all of them. Thank you for commenting and adding to the discussion. To explain, what I meant by "smaller government" was the possibility of additional outsourcing (I know, a touchy subject for some) which would reduce some direct expenses and overhead.
With this said I do agree that we have some special employees that do indeed go "above and beyond" in their service to the Village. I don't ever discount that fact. That why this subject is a difficult one... but also an important one to debate.
I really liked you Ulysses and the Sirens mention. Good words.
Jorge,
ReplyDeleteFollow up. I thought a little more on what you wrote and also had a resident (which asked to remain anonymous) write me to forward a comment regarding your condo reference. It is, " One of the examples used is the monthly maintenance fees and frequent annual special assessments that are the norm in condos, as if that somehow justifies the need for these two special fees. One of the many reasons many of us don't live in condos is the notoriously poor financial management of dues and assessments. Just because something similar is done in another environment doesn't make it right."
So, moving along I also wanted to add that we always have options. They may not be popular with you or I, or another, but it doesn't discount the fact that we have options. Another thought offered was "It's just a blind acceptance of "we've cut as much as we can". I am simply not convinced we are getting the most out of every dollar. Having the highest tax rate plus 2 additional fees will certainly not help in getting houses sold here."
All opinions are welcome. This is a topic that will draw out opposing points of view. And in my book, that 's okay. We, the taxpayers and homeowners are in truth, somewhat partners in this.
Ok, to answer at the condo example. I knew it was a little controversial but I cannot find a comparable city in Miami-Dade that has no commercial or industrial areas. The ones that are all residential have very high home values, like Golden Beach.
ReplyDeleteIf anything the comparison to condo associations is unfair to condos. Lets say the clubhouse at the Towers of Quayside needs remodeling. They will have to share the costs between all property owners, no other option. We need to remodel our city hall and as a city we get a grant from Tallahassee to help with funding. Not a bad deal for us.
My point was that we sorely need to redo our roads and after years of neglect we have to do what we have to do and if we get lucky we'll get some funds. I certainly hope so.
Jorge,
DeleteFair enough. I've reached out to a few (since posting) and should have more information to share soon. I will update the blog then.
Milt