The vote for the 14.9 percent rate increase was 5-2, with Commissioners Steven Abrams and Shelley Vana opposed.

Click here to read an account by our Jennifer Sorentrue.

Abrams is on the ballot next year. So is Commissioner Priscilla Taylor, who supported the $4.34 rate. Commissioner Jess Santamaria, another supporter of the rate hike, is up for reelection next year but hasn’t announced whether he’ll run.

Question: Will the tax vote matter in any of the 2010 races?

“A 15 percent increase in the tax rate is unconscionable in the kind of economy we’re in right now,” said state Rep. Mary Brandenburg, D-West Palm Beach, who’s running next year for the District 2 commission seat of term-limited Jeff Koons.

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County Democratic Chairman Siegel says $4.34 rate is OK

Because overall property values have declined, the 14.9 percent rate hike would generate roughly the same amount of revenue in 2009-10 as the county is getting this year and therefore wouldn’t meet the state’s legal definition of a tax increase. But homesteaded property owners, whose taxes have been relatively flat in recent years because of appraisal limits in the state’s Save Our Homes act, would see higher tax bills under the plan.

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Gov. Charlie Crist performed as the Sunshine State’s chief pitch-man, blowing off Florida’s historic population loss and touting the fine weather in a CNBC interview this morning.

Florida saw a drop of 58,000 residents last year, the first population decrease since military residents left the state after World War II.

“It’s not that big a deal, to be honest with you,” Crist shrugged off the decline on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” show today.

The governor then launched into a Sunshine State sales pitch, touting declines in property taxes and property insurance rates and the weather.

“And it’s Florida. It’s a beautiful place. It’s a gorgeous day today down here in South Florida. You just can’t beat the Sunshine State,” said Crist, who is in Miami. Florida I really think is on the rise and it’s a great deal for an awful lot of people, too.”

Although Florida’s unemployment rate is nearly 11 percent, Crist was upbeat about the job market and pointed to Palm Beach County as a shining example.

Palm Beach County’s unemployment rate was 11.7 percent in July, one percentage point above the state average.

“Even in the Palm Beach County area where Scripps and Torrey Pines and some of these other scientific institutes have located, Max Planck…it’s been great for that area of the state,” Crist said. “We’re very pleased with the direction things are going. We wish they were better, don’t misunderstand me. But we’re not sitting still. We’re on the move. And I continue to be optimistic and encouraged about where we’re going.”

Crist, who drew the wrath of fellow Republicans by urging Congress to pass President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan, reversed that position on the health care reforms now being considered in Washington.

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Palm Beach County commissioners haven’t approved an increase in the general county property tax rate since 1997.

That’s hardly a badge of fiscal discipline. Thanks to a booming real estate market, commissioners over the last 12 years have routinely held the rate steady or lowered it — and still collected massive revenue increases that exceeded inflation or population growth.

Now that property values have cratered, maintaining the current countywide tax rate of $3.78 per $1,000 of appraised value would force commissioners to find about $70 million in cuts for the budget year that begins Oct. 1.

They’ll grapple with the 2009-10 budget again Monday.

Read more about it here.

Folks who use mirrors to look up women’s dresses or down their shirts better beware.

A Senate panel approved a measure that would broaden the video voyeurism laws to make the practice illegal. Current law prohibits peeping Toms from using electronic devices, like video cameras, to peer at others’ privates but does nothing to bar them from doing the same with a mirror.

Sen. Dave Aronberg filed the measure in response to a Panhandle case in which a man used a mirror to peer up a woman’s skirt at a bookstore.

The judge in that case noted that “there is is no clear prohibition of this reprehensible conduct anywhere in the state of Florida.”

Aronberg, D-Greenacres, provided a simple explanation of the bill (SB 1064) during a rushed Senate Judiciary Committee meeting this morning: “Means you can’t look up women’s skirts using a mirror.”

Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, was showered by a round of boos in his committee meeting this morning after postponing a vote on a controversial proposal for commuter rail in Central Florida.

Read more about the meeting here.

Lawson

Haridopolos

The loophole allows sellers to avoid paying a state tax — the documentary stamp fee collected on real estate deals — by arranging transactions so they aren’t classified as sales of real property.

In a Palm Beach County deal three years ago, three properties sold collectively for $600 million but reaped only $2.10 in doc stamps.

Because of the loophole, the state lost $4.2 million, something Florida can ill afford to continue given its current economic anemia, argued Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson, the bill (SB 2430) sponsor.

“If we had sold 1,500 homes priced at $400,000, it would have generated the amount of money generated on that one sale of $600 million,” Lawson, D-Tallahassee, said at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting this morning.
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Don Winstead

Alexander agreed that lawmakers need to move quickly to get the money already available for road and water projects that could create jobs the fastest.

He said he’d like to get the budget committees working on passing bills as early as tomorrow to appropriate the federal funds for the construction projects and for Medicaid spending. Depending on the House’s position, the legislature could pass the budget amendments as early as next week, he said.

Gov. Charlie Crist appointed Don Winstead to act as the state’s “recovery czar” last week.

But despite the necessary legislative approval for the spending to begin, Winstead has yet to meet with Alexander.

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The Florida Senate kicked off the opening day of session by recognizing members and staff who have served in the military.

Today, March 3, marks Florida’s 164th anniversary of being a state, prompting the military honors.

Six senators served in the military, including Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, who served three tours of duty in Vietnam.

Former Senate President Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, also received honors because his son, Stephen, is currently serving in the U.S. Marines.

The military salute began far earlier in the day, however.

As the sun rose over the Capitol this morning, Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul raised flags which were distributed to the Senate staff whose family members served or are serving in the military.
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Senate President Jeff Atwater opened the 111th legislative session with sobering observations about the task awaiting lawmakers as they prepare to craft a budget amid a bleak and worsening state economy.

“Florida does not have a day or a dollar to waste. There are a hundred reasons why the task is too big, why the decisions are too hard, why the issues are too tough,” the North Palm Beach Republican advised.

“None of us bargained for this. But neither did one in thirteen of our neighbors who have now lost their homes. Nor did one in twelve of our neighbors who are now unemployed. Nor did one in ten of our fellow Floridians who are now dependent on food stamps. They didn’t bargain for this either. We did not choose it. We did not cause it. But senators we are obligated to confront it,” he said.

Atwater presented each senator with a metaphorical gift to aid them in crafting a budget with an anticipated $2 billion-plus spending gap.
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The “sweet freedom” that Gov. Charlie Crist promised in the Amendment 1 property tax cut last year didn’t quite meet the state’s lofty expectations, according to a presentation made this morning to the Senate Finance & Tax Committee.
State economists expected the Save Our Homes “portability” element in the amendment to eliminate $11.6 billion in taxable value from property rolls. But figures from the state Revenue Department show the actual reduction was $3.4 billion.
The reason? Not as many homestead owners moved. Portability lets Floridians transfer their Save Our Homes differential from one homestead to another.
In 2008, 42,647 portability transfers occurred. Of those, 69 percent happened within the same county.
The biggest county-to-county change was the 448 Floridians who moved from Broward to Palm Beach.
Download the PowerPoint presentation here.

House Speaker Marco Rubio lamented today’s court ruling that knocked the Amendment 5 property tax cut off the ballot.

“It appears that when it comes to tax cuts, the courts have taken some extreme liberties in how they’re deciding,” Rubio said in an interview.

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A Leon County Circuit Court judge is expected to decide by tomorrow whether to strike from the November ballot a constitutional amendment that would cut property taxes that pay for schools and cap assessments for non-homestead properties.

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At a press conference today to unveil giveme5florida.com, Amendment 5 supporter Rep. Darryl Rouson, a St. Pete Dem and a member of the TBRC that put the measure on the ballot, said the change would help low-income minority homeowners.

“This is also good for black folks in distressed and poor communities where property taxes are sometimes killing them and hastening gentrification,” said Rouson, who is black. “This will help people maintain homes … It works for everybody.”

However, a Palm Beach Post analysis in March found the amendment would mean a tax increase for state’s poorest residents while providing a break for its richest.

Florida TaxWatch is scheduled to release its own analysis of the amendment at a press conference Wednesday.

The property tax cut that the state’s voters overwhelmingly decided to give themselves this year will not result in significant savings for most homeowners, Palm Beach County leaders warned Monday.

Less than five months after voters went to the polls, County Administrator Bob Weisman said he would recommend an 8.3 percent increase in the county’s property tax rate to recoup the revenue lost as a result of the housing market meltdown.

The hike would eat away much, if not all, of the tax savings that homesteaded property owners thought they would see as a result of the constitutional amendment and state-mandated budget cuts - reductions that Gov. Charlie Crist once said would make their taxes “drop like a rock.”

Read the rest from Jennifer Sorentrue here. Check out today’s front page here.

Despite promises to avoid raising property taxes that pay for schools, a plan from state House Republicans would hit property owners in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, Hillsborough and 17 other counties with tax increases, according to a Palm Beach Post analysis.

Read the rest of the story here. See today’s front page here.

Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller, who has little appetite for another constitutional amendment for property taxes, had a few, well, issues about about a measure approved today by the Senate Community Affairs Committee.

The bill (SB 2190) would limit property taxes to 1.35 percent of a property’s value.

“Right now we’re supposed to be voting for a bill that we don’t know how it would work, we don’t know how it would be implemented, and we don’t know what the fiscal impact is, but we should pass it out of this committee. Do I fully understand?” Geller asked.

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The grocery store cashier, the public school teacher and the young family trying to establish roots in suburbia could lose more of their income to state government under a proposed tax change that would give the state’s wealthiest residents the biggest benefit, a Palm Beach Post analysis shows.

Read the rest of the analysis here. Check out today’s front page here.

The Taxation and Budget Reform Commission just approved a constitutional amendment for the November ballot that would prevent marinas and other “working waterfronts” to be assessed based on how the property is used, instead of how it could be used.

The distinction has meant that marinas along the Palm Beach County coastline have been assessed as if they were condominiums. The proposal, which needs a final, techincal vote, could save working waterfront property owners (and cost schools and local governments) roughly $70 million next year.