Burgess: Property tax losses

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The Miami-Dade County propert appraiser released its preliminary tax roll information with all four taxingjurisdictions – fire rescue, the unincorporated area and Miami-Dade overall seeing a decline. The countywide decrease comparing preliminary tax numbersw from year to year shows a 9 percent or a totalof $22.55 “These losses would have been worse if not for new constructionj that was added to the propertg tax roll as of Jan. 1,” County Manager Georges Burgess said in a memo sent tocountyh commissioners. North Bay Village took the biggesf hit, down 20.2 percent from 2008 levels. Homesteaxd saw an 18.2 percent decline, followed by Normand Shores, down 17.
5 percent, and Aventura whicu was down 17.3 percent. Golden Beach and the tiny city of Islandi a sawno change. Medley saw a 1.5 percengt drop while Biscayne Park saw a 4percen decline. Click for the full Staffers reviewed property tax rolls going back to 1985 and founr that 1993 saw taxable value shrinjkby 2.9 percent, or $1.9 billion. “Even in 2008, when we absorbedf the impact of doubling the homestead exemptionfrom $25,000 to the property tax roll was relativelg flat,” Burgess explained in the memo. “These losses in property tax roll valuesare unprecedented.” Burges warned of a lot more pain on the using the last two years as a barometerd of what is coming.
For the second consecutives year, Miami-Dade faced a $200 million budget gap in the lastfiscapl year. Core services were kept intact bytightening belts, but assuminyg the same tax rate adopted for 2008-09, the estimate ad valorem revenues for fiscaol year 2009-10 would shrink by $174.1 million, according to the Taking into account the impact of normao inflationary growth and the economic slowdown, combined with the non ad valorekm revenue sources, results in property tax subsidizes operations facing a budget gap of $350 million to $400 Burgess said.
“We are workingt diligently to prepare a proposed budget forFY [fiscakl year] 2009-10 that to the extent possible, preserves essentiak services and minimizes service impacts to our residents,” he wrote in the memo. “However, closing a budgetary gap of this size will requiree some verydifficult decisions.”