East Coast - Sunday, July 20, 2008 22:53 - 0 Comments

What Collier residents are bound to pay in taxes

Doing more with less will be the battle cry of Collier County officials during this budget season.

When county commissioners meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday, it will be very clear which departments are taking the greatest hits.

While the property tax rates remain the same as they were last year — $3.1469 per $1,000 worth of property for the primary general fund, and 69 cents per $1,000 worth of property for the second general fund — with real estate value plummeting, there’s less revenue for the county to pick at.

The second general fund applies to every property owner who doesn’t live in an incorporated city, which means most of Collier County. So, the combined tax rate for the two general funds adds up to about $3.84 per $1,000 worth of property.

The general fund should generate some $249,156,703 in tax dollars, a 7.03 percent decline from the previous year’s adjusted balance of $54,898,414; while the secondary general fund is expected to collect $35,416,000, a 2.66 percent slip from 2008’s adjusted budget of $36,335,067.

That figure doesn’t include the extra assessments, like the Water Pollution Control tax, which is about 2 cents per $1,000 worth of property.

Other special regional assessments include Golden Gate Community Center; Victoria Park Drainage; Naples Park Drainage; Pine Ridge Industrial Park; Naples Production Park; Vanderbilt Beach municipal service taxing district; Isles of Capri Fire & Rescue; Ochopee Fire Control; Collier County Fire (actually Emergency Medical Services;) Goodland/Horr’s Island Fire municipal service taxing unit; Sabal Palm Road municipal service taxing unit; Golden Gate Parkway Beautification; Lely Golf Estates Beautification; Hawkridge Stormwater Pumping municipal service taxing unit; Radio Road Beautification’ Forest Lakes Roadway and Drainage municipal service taxing unit; Immokalee Beautification municipal service taxing unit; Bayshore Avalon Beautification; Haldeman Creek Dredging; Rock Road; Conservation Collier; Caribbean Gardens; Forest Lakes Debt Service; Conservation Collier Debt Service; Collier County Lighting; and Pelican Bay Municipal Service Taxing and Beautification Unit.

Each of the above have its own pot of money, and fund identifiers, such as Conservation Collier is fund number 172, and has a tax rate of about 16 or 17 cents; while the Conservation Collier Debt Service fund number is 272, and has a tax rate of about 6 or 7 cents.

There’s a lot of transferring going from one fund to another but in the end county officials seem to have made it work.

The total County Commission budget, which includes county attorney and airport operations, looks like it’s going to be $28,767,900 an increase of 4.88 percent; while the total county capital budget is expected to bring in $386,487,100, a 45.71 percent dip from the $729,882,000 adopted and revised 2008 budget.

However, the total county net budget looks like it is going to be $1,000,630,400, a 23.5 percent decrease from the 2008 adopted budge of $1,307,657,500.

The big surprise is that the employee count has not decreased but increased 0.8 percent, from 3,740.43 workers to 3,763.03 workers. County governments refer to employees as full-time equivalents, which means that two or more people could be sharing the same job.