Opinion: What Should Bay County Residents Demand With Regards to Property Tax Relief

PANAMA CITY BEACH, FL - Like with all lofty goals, the devil is in the details, and property tax relief is no exception. Don’t get me wrong, I am one hundred percent behind the goal and will most certainly vote for it, but we need to make sure Tallahassee doesn’t do more harm than good. 

For example, the Clerk of the Court, Supervisor of Elections, Tax Collector, State Attorney, Public Defenders and Property Appraiser are all Constitutional Officers. Meaning tomorrow the State could and should step in and fund the offices they mandate we have. 

Now, try not to laugh when I tell you this. The governor’s staff started calling the county managers to ask for input about how to craft the ballot initiative. Only to find out they can and should already be funding the aforementioned offices. 

Once again, I am all in on property tax relief, but imagine the look on their faces when they found out it just might require Tallahassee to pick up part of the tab, instead of just being able to mandate someone else do so. 

Oh, but it only gets better. 

You could easily make the case, given the Sheriff is a constitutional officer as well. The state should pick up his budget. Which just happens to be one of our biggest line items in the budget. 

Lucky for the State, in this case. I don’t believe the voters would support their safety being put in the hands of politicians in Tallahassee. 

There is also the issue of special assessments. Take Panama City Beach, for example. They don’t have an ad valorem property tax, but they do have special  assessments for Fire, Storm Water and the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). 

How does Tallahassee plan to address that part of the equation? If you make property taxes illegal, will that not lead to an avalanche of special assessments? 

These are all questions that need to be answered prior to implementation. 

Then there is the sixtyfour-dollar question. Where does the money come from to replace the property tax? Lucky for us, we have an external revenue source known as “tourists”. 

Allow the counties to use the Tourist Development Tax (e.g. bed tax for property tax relief) and half the problem will be solved. Mandating forty percent of those dollars to be spent on advertising is pathologically insane. 

Take the recent announcement that Gulf Coast Jam will get five hundred thousand dollars to advertise for a concert that sells out in forty-eight hours. And, according to their own data, eighty-five percent of those sales are to the people that attended this year. 

This is mandated, wasteful spending. And I don’t blame the TDC or the promoters. If the government asks you if you want “free” money, how many people do you know that would say “no”? 

For additional details about property tax relief, visit Bay Watch FL, exclusively on Rumble. rumble.com/c/BayWatchFL

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