Warning: Constant ABSPATH already defined in /home/flanews/public_html/wp-config.php on line 34
Capitol News Service » Blog Archive » Rick Scott Proposes 79.3 Billion State Budget with Potentially Higher Property Taxes

Welcome to

Capitol News Service

Florida's Best Political Coverage on Television

 


 


 


Recent Posts

RSS Quote of the Day

  • Charles Baudelaire
    "Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation."
  • Wilson Mizner
    "The best way to keep your friends is not to give them away."
  • Benjamin Disraeli
    "Silence is the mother of truth."
  • H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
    "Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness."

Rick Scott Proposes 79.3 Billion State Budget with Potentially Higher Property Taxes

November 23rd, 2015 by Mike Vasilinda

Governor Rick Scott is proposing a record state spending plan that cuts taxes by a billion dollars and boosts education spending. But as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the increase in school spending is coming from local property taxes, not state coffers.

Governor Rick Scott chose a Jacksonville small company as the back drop for his budget announcement. He’s pitching a billion dollars in tax cuts…mostly for businesses. The irony is that those same businesses could see their property taxes go up to fund the Governor’s school budget.

“So this year were going to have historic finding for K-12 education” Scott told reporters.

Scott is pitching a 45 dollar per student increase. More than 400 million would come from what is called the required local effort….That’s the money local school districts are required to levy in property taxes to fund schools.

Scott defends the idea this way.

“We are not raising the milage rate.  We haven’t done that since I got elected. But property values when they go up, that’s good for us” says Scott.

And while the millage rate…or the amount of tax per hundred dollars of value is the same, Property owners will pay more because their property values have gone up.

Businesses will actually be hit harder than homeowners if the required local effort stays in the budget. That’s because businesses don’t have a homestead exemption.”

Without being forced to raise an extra 400 million, local school boards could lower the millage rate, saving taxpayers money. Andrea Messina is the new Executive Director of the Florida School Boards Association. “The record funding levels that are being touted are actually on the backs of the local school boards. They’re not with the increase in revenues that are coming into the state coffers” she says.

The Governor’s push to keep the required local effort at the same level comes as the state has more that five billion in surplus.

Legislation filed last week would require lawmakers and local school boards to public notices disclosing how much local taxpayers are being asked to pay for schools. It is yet to be assigned to a committee.

Posted in State News | Comments Off on Rick Scott Proposes 79.3 Billion State Budget with Potentially Higher Property Taxes

Comments are closed.

copyright © 2016 by Capitol News Service | Powered by Wordpress | Hosted by LyonsHost.com