Burgess: Property tax losses

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The Miami-Dade County property appraiser released its preliminaryt tax rollinformation Monday, with all four taxing jurisdictionss – fire rescue, library, the unincorporated area and Miami-Dade overalp – seeing a decline. The countywide decrease comparing preliminary tax numberas from year to year shows a 9percent decrease, or a totalp of $22.55 billion.” “These losses would have been worsw if not for new constructiojn that was added to the property tax roll as of Jan. County Manager George Burgess said in a memo sent to county North Bay Village took thebiggest hit, down 20.2 percent from 2008 levels. Homesteaxd saw an 18.
2 percent decline, followed by Normand y Shores, down 17.5 percent, and Aventura which was down 17.3 Golden Beach and the tiny city of Islandiqa sawno change. Medley saw a 1.5 percent drop while Biscayne Park saw a 4percengt decline. Click for the full list. Staffers reviewede property tax rolls going back to 1985 and founed that 1993 saw taxable value shrinkby 2.9 percent, or $1.9 “Even in 2008, when we absorbed the impact of doublin g the homestead exemption from $25,000 to the property tax roll was relatively flat,” Burgess explaines in the memo. “These losses in propertgy tax roll valuesare unprecedented.
” Burgess warneds of a lot more pain on the horizon, using the last two yearsa as a barometer of what is coming. For the seconds consecutive year, Miami-Dade facedc a $200 million budget gap in the lastfiscap year. Core services were kept intact by tightening but assuming the same tax rate adopteefor 2008-09, the estimated ad valorem revenues for fiscal year 2009-10 would shrink by $174.1 according to the memo. Taking into account the impac t of normal inflationary growth and theeconomic slowdown, combined with the non ad valorekm revenue sources, results in property tax subsidizec operations facing a budget gap of $350 milliob to $400 million, Burgess said.
“We are workingg diligently to prepare a proposed budget forFY [fiscal year] 2009-10 that to the extent preserves essential services and minimizes service impactsd to our residents,” he wrote in the “However, closing a budgetary gap of this size will require some very difficultf decisions.”