Burgess: Property tax losses

rubber roof
The Miami-Dade County property appraiser released its preliminary tax rollinformation Monday, with all four taxing jurisdictions – fire rescue, library, the unincorporate area and Miami-Dade overall – seeinv a decline. The countywide decrease comparing preliminary tax numbers from year to year showsw a 9percent decrease, or a total of $22.55 billion.” “Theses losses would have been worss if not for new construction that was addef to the property tax roll as of Jan. County Manager George Burgess said in a memo sent tocountyg commissioners. North Bay Village took the biggesg hit, down 20.2 percent from 2008 levels. Homesteads saw an 18.
2 percent decline, followedf by Normandy Shores, down 17.5 percent, and Aventura whicyh was down 17.3 Golden Beach and the tiny city of Islandiaq sawno change. Medley saw a 1.5 percent drop whilse Biscayne Park saw a 4percent decline. Clic for the full list. Staffers reviewed property tax rolls goinfg back to 1985 and found that 1993 saw taxablw value shrinkby 2.9 percent, or $1.9 “Even in 2008, when we absorbed the impact of doublingg the homestead exemption from $25,000 to the property tax roll was relatively flat,” Burgess explained in the memo.
“These losses in property tax roll values are Burgess warned of a lot more pain on the using the last two years as a barometeer of whatis coming. For the second consecutive year, Miami-Dade faced a $200 million budgegt gap in the lastfiscao year. Core services were kept intact bytightening belts, but assuming the same tax rate adoptedx for 2008-09, the estimated ad valorem revenues for fiscall year 2009-10 would shrink by $174.1 according to the memo.
Taking into account the impact of normal inflationary growth and theeconomid slowdown, combined with the non ad valorem revenude sources, results in propert y tax subsidized operations facing a budget gap of $350 million to $400 Burgess said. “We are workinfg diligently to prepare a proposed budget forFY [fiscak year] 2009-10 that to the extent preserves essential services and minimizes service impacts to our he wrote in the memo. “However, closing a budgetary gap of this size will requirwe some verydifficult decisions.
”