Need vs. Want

On the front page of this paper Port St. Joe Commissioner Rex Buzzett succinctly nails the major issue facing government and taxpayers this budget season.

Maintaining services against tax relief in times in which most folks can use every dime in their pocket.

From municipalities to county to school board the tightrope elected officials must walk this year to balance the wants and needs will be thin as they are expected to lose as much as 25 percent of property tax revenues as values continues to fall.

This fiscal cratering of budgets is compounded by the pass-through items the state sends down each year in requirements and “mandates.”

Mandates can’t even really be the label in most cases since the term is so narrowly defined in Florida Statutes that a third-grader could come up with the language to escape the ignominious characterization of anything being a mandate, let alone the infamous “unfunded mandate.”

In reality, a significant portion of the blame of budgets pushed to breaking at the local levels lies in the antics currently underway in Tallahassee as state legislators undertake the 60-day legislative session.

Facing a deficit of over $3 billion, that’s billion and a deficit that all projections indicate is not coming down despite signs of slight increases in sales tax revenue, state lawmakers are doing what they typically do each year, scrambling to figure out who else should pay their bills.

And that, too often, is the local taxpayer.

For example, the county is deemed one of critical economic concern as it pertains to county and city government, but this is a property-rich county as it pertains to school taxes and therefore more and more of the tax burden for schools falls locally.

Leave aside the one mill referendum that was passed by voters last year, and the local taxpayers have gone from paying roughly 40 percent of the cost of district public schools to paying almost 80 percent inside the span of a decade.

The state has for years been pushing more and more of the responsibility, and therefore tax burden, onto local taxpayers, a trend in education funding statewide.

State lawmakers have played the same shell game for lottery funding that was supposed to fuel additional school funding the way Congress has played with Social Security, using the funds to plug holes in the general budget while issuing IOUs that will never be paid.

The local public libraries face the prospect of not having a cent for new books, magazines and newspapers.

The Senior Citizens Center will be under significant pressure to even open its doors if a proposal to increase the Medicaid burden for counties becomes reality.

Cuts and the moving of resources at the Department of Juvenile Justice have fiscal impacts on the local courts and schools.

The list goes on and on and every year for state lawmakers it is all the same, regardless of the symptoms outside.

This year’s proposed budget will come in at least $10 billion more than the state spent a decade ago despite a population suddenly in decline, unemployment at levels not seen in years and economic development badly in need of a jump-start.

For those who wish to throw the bums out, a good place to start would be Tallahassee and the fourth floor of the state Capitol where the nest of lobbyists and power brokers lurk for lawmakers heading in and out of the Senate and House chambers.

Locally the dilemma is proportionally on par.

The county does not possess the money to operate the jail to state requirements for jail operation.

The elimination of limb or yard debris removal due to costs has had multiple ramifications – revenue at the landfill, which cost the county almost $1 million to operate last year, is down, the incidence of debris being tossed on the side of the road and in woods is up and the result is the county back in the pick-up business.

At taxpayer cost for fuel, workers, etc.

The city of Port St. Joe could not build the promised road adjacent to Sand Hills Pond until it was provided road bond funding by two county commissioners.

A proposed connector road between Williams Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. would be a pipe dream if not for donated services and, again, road bond dollars from a county commissioner.

Even with such largesse the city is currently staring at a doughnut hole of several hundred thousand dollars in its budget for the coming fiscal year which will have to be closed in some form or fashion.

Customers think their water bills are high now, they could be heading north.

There would be plenty of folks in the county who would argue, rightly or wrongly, that a cut in services would not have an impact since cutting zero leaves a remainder of zero.

But in many latent ways local government impacts all; for many of the most vulnerable in very significant ways.

And this is a budget season in which taxpayers and government alike must reconcile the fluid description concerning the role of government.

They must make some of the hard choices many small businesses made more than a year or two ago, a decision even the largest landowner in the region has made and is still making.

With shrinking resources, where is the line between need and want found?

Local government has been behind the private sector in reaching that line. Now it is here, whether elected officials are ready or not.