Midway discusses tax bills
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Brown

The only tax bills that carried errors among the recent tax notices sent out by the county property appraiser's office were those for Midway Fire District. And it only affected those property owners who have homestead properties. But the mistake was not in the column of how much those taxpayers owe this year. It was in the column of how much they paid last year.

"It just made it look like people were paying us a whole lot more this year than last," explained Midway Fire Treasurer Clyde Broome. "That isn't true."

So Midway Fire Commission asked its attorney to send a letter to Santa Rosa County Property Appraiser Greg Brown asking him to send out new notices to Midway taxpayers. Commission Chairman Buck Thackeray said at last week's regular meeting that they still had not heard anything back from the property appraiser's office on the request yet.

Brown told Gulf Breeze News, "We would be glad to send out new notices, if Midway wants to pay for them. It costs a lot of money to send the notices. But we did post the corrected version on the website."

Brown explains it was a glitch from the software vendor. "The vendor sent us a corrected version of the bills. We have posted them on our website. So if Midway taxpayers want to see a corrected version, they can just pull up our website to find it. But the amount on the bills of what they owe this year is correct. It is only the amount they paid last year which is in error," Brown said.

Treasurer Broome said it was bad timing for the district, since the district is going to ask for a referendum vote in January for an increase in monies to keep their current level of services, due to cut backs by the state. "People will look at this and think they already paid so much more to Midway this year then last, when in reality they didn't. Of course, we never are allowed to increase the tax rate anyway, without a vote. It stays at 1.4 mills every year, as approved by Midway voters. The property appraiser increases property values and that is what our millage is levied on. So we are not increasing taxes, the property appraisers are increasing values - if a person's property value goes up, that in turn would bring us more money even with the same millage rate as last year."

Broome used his own tax bill as an example at last week's meeting to show how much of a difference the software glitch made in the bills. "You can see here, from my own bill, that it looks like am paying between $40 to $50 more this year to Midway Fire than last year. That isn't true. have no idea where they came up with that amount, from last year. In actuality, I only am paying $4 more than last year. When people see that big jump, they are going to think, 'Wow, they got a bunch more money from us this year already, and then are asking for even more?' And we are the only taxing authority in Santa Rosa County that had the mistake made in the tax bills. Bad timing for us."

Midway Fire Commission Chair Buck Thackeray said the level of service provided by Midway is what they believe Midway voters want, from past input and ballot votes. "With the money we have, and the millage we levy, we provide service for more people along this peninsula than any other taxing authority right now. We provide services to between 25,000 - 28,000 people, at least, according to the figures from the 2000 census. Gulf Breeze City services about 6,000. Yet we do not ask as high a millage rate as some around us or in other parts of the county. Yet we have the only Haz-Mat team in the county, used anywhere in the county it is needed, and we are the only full service paid department in the county right now, with Holley-Navarre becoming a paid department in January. We offer many, many services - including very quick response times in medical emergencies as well as fire calls - that other communities around the county do not. And our taxpayers here have voted to give us the money to do it. We try to be very responsible in how we use their trust."

Midway Fire District taxpayers are allowing the fire commission to levy 1.4 mills of property taxes each year. The City of Gulf Breeze levies a total of 1.6283, City of Milton levies 2.75, and Jay levies 2.0.

Taxpayers will note that the county commission millage rate this year is 6.6175, and the school board levies 7.2070 mills.