The Flagler County Commission will seek letters of support from Palm Coast, Flagler Beach and Bunnell to raise the county’s sales surtax to 7.5 percent and generate an additional $10 million that would be shared between the four governments and used at their discretion.
Palm Coast’s answer may well be: Read the room.
The County Commission agreed to solicit the letters at a workshop on Monday, after getting a briefing on a projected deficit of $5 million or more in the county’s road-and-bridge program over the next five years. (See: “Flagler County Faces a $5.6 Million Deficit in Road Costs Over Next 5 Years; Gas Tax Is Tapped Out.”)
The deficit is due in part to the fact that revenue from the half-penny sales tax the county is already levying is entirely spoken for as it finances the county jail and other projects, while $2.5 million in revenue from the local gas tax is also used up by ongoing maintenance.
The commission was not yet aware of how the Palm Coast City Council today turned into an embarrassment of incivility, on and off the dais, as council members parried public fury at a historic cut in the city’s tax rate that residents feared would be made up by a new utility tax. It was not. But the message was loud and shrill: residents do not want a new tax, however clear and present the needs for infrastructure revenue. (See: “Palm Coast in Ugly Meeting Votes to Lower Tax Rate Substantially and Add New, Modest Fee for Now.”)
But the county didn’t need today’s experience at the council to know that it was treading dangerous territory. In June 2021, then-County Administrator Jerry Cameron tried to get support to raise the county’s sales tax by half a percent. He wanted the cities’ support, but sought it with no public preparation or much transparency. Palm Coast shut that avenue down. The proposal died. (See: “Quietly, and Without Voter Say, Flagler County Readies to Raise Sales Tax on Everyone. Palm Coast Says No.”)
County Administrator Heidi Petito on Monday told the commission that there may be more appetite for the new tax now, though she may have been soliciting the wrong crowd. “I’ve talked to their staff now and I think that there is willingness,” Petito said, “and they wanted to know if they needed to write a letter of support. They’re looking at ways to stop the gap. They’ve got the deficit. It’s not necessarily our issue, but this is one community and many of us live in Palm Coast.” (Read background on Palm Coast’s $52 million needs in street dollars.)
“It wasn’t so much the staff was a problem at the Palm Coast,” County Commissioner Dave Sullivan corrected. “It was the elected members of the Palm Coast City Council.”
“They don’t want to drink antifreeze. At least one of them,” Commissioner Donald O’Brien said, referring to Palm Coast Council member Ed Danko, who led the opposition to the sales surtax addition two years ago. Danko likes to say that he’d rather drink antifreeze than raise taxes. Danko was again the circus master today as the council devolved into acrimony over the utility franchise fee it adopted, albeit at a negligible rate.
Sullivan set out the way the surtax could be approved: only with the cities’ support. “I’d rather see pretty upfront if we’re going down this road, letters of support from each of the other cities,” he said. “It would have to be from their elected officials. Right? Because if we don’t have that, you don’t have it. You don’t have a decision. But I don’t mean that–I’m just saying that’s what you need to push anything like this through, because the publicity on this is not going to be easy to to handle.”
O’Brien said the cities have no political risk. “We have the risk,” he said. (O’Brien is running for the House of Representatives in 2024.)
The County Commission would have to have a supermajority to approve the measure–a 4-1 vote. The alternative is to put the measure on the ballot. It would not do that, anymore than it did in 2012, knowing that voters would reject it. On the other hand, if it were a ballot measure and it passed, then the county (and the cities) could use the revenue to issue bonds, leveraging the money more effectively for bed. They cannot do that simply by a commission vote enacting the surtax. On the other hand, if the surtax is secured by referendum, the revenue cannot be used for operational needs, though bonded revenue can certainly be used for road projects.
Commissioner Andy Dance prefers the referendum approach, giving each of the municipalities a more direct stake. He is also interested in exploring other avenues. An additional local option gas tax, however, would generate roughly $2 million, Petito said, only $400,000 of which would be the county’s share. So she’s not proposing it.
“Certainly we can explore other things but it’s important that we come up with a plan and what does that plan look like,” Petito said.
Petito proposed two ways to pay for the county’s road deficit: dedicating a portion of the county’s property tax, the equivalent of 0.4 mils, or 40 cents per $1,000 in taxable value on a property. The other option is to increase the sales surtax by half a cent. That would increase revenue countywide by nearly $10 million. It would have to be proportionately distributed to the cities and the county. The county’s share would be $4.4 million. Palm Coast would get $4.8 million–curiously, within range of what the city would have netted had it imposed a 5 percent utility franchise fee.
“This would certainly go a long way with helping those challenges,” Petito said. She was referring to the county’s deficit. But she may as well have been referring to Palm Coast’s as well. The current sales tax in Flagler County is 7 percent.
“To me, I think it’s a more palatable thing than putting it on the property owners and increasing the millage rate,” Petito said. She claimed that Flagler County is “the only county in the state of Florida that does not” levy the full-cent surtax. In fact, several small counties do not levy the small-county surtax at all, among them Wakulla, Putnam, Monroe and Highlands, though each of those has a local government infrastructure surtax of 1 penny.
Of all the small counties that do levy the small-government surtax, Flagler is the only one that levies half a penny, rather than the full penny. But overall, Flagler is one of dozens of counties that under-utilize their sales tax capacity. (See the Department of Revenue’s full breakdown of sales taxes by type and by county here.)
Petito also repeated the claim that advocates of sales taxes always repeat, however illogical and irrelevant its math: that a large proportion of those who will pay the sales tax are visitors. Petito claims it’s 40 percent, though the figure, undocumented, is almost certainly a large exaggeration. Even if 80 percent of those paying the tax were visitors, however, it doesn’t change the fact that the tax burden will be the same on every Flagler County resident. In other words, while claiming that visitors pay a large portion of sales taxes is a great marketing trick, it is also an illusion, as far as residents’ pocketbooks are concerned, since it will not offset the taxes local residents will pay.
But there are no illusions on the commission in one regard: “This is a new tax,” Commission Chairman Greg Hansen said.
Celia Pugliese says
Cut spending tighten the belt in the county administration and freeze hiring and pay. Let the “must have” go and adopt ” the needs”. Stop building castles to yourselves with other people’s monies. Approvals for a 33 millions library and tourist center and that trendy new jail? No wonder revenue ain’t enough. And now raise the sales tax?
pete says
NO NO NO
BLINDSPOTTING says
Can’t wait to see how this fiasco is going to play out, I think that Ms. Petito jumped
the gun a little too soon in asking for the City of PC support , the writing is on the wall,
we the citizens have spoken and we don”t not want any more tax increases then what we
have had already, one thing you are right about Ms. Petito when you mentioned that this is
one community and most live in Palm Coast but this is not going to sit well with Mayor
Alfin as he does not care about his residents in the Quail Hollow and Seminole Woods
communities and alleviates himself from the danger and noise of the unlicensed flight
school students who fly dangerously low and loud over those communities. Those
communities are in Palm Coast too Ms. Petito, maybe you should ask the Mayor if he
can contribute some of the money he received from the government for his great
western frontier real estate venture of which he has pictures for his own grandiose
idea. Bottom line we all can’t wait for voting time to roll around!
Field of dreams says
So we all pay for taxes to rebuild roads out where nobody lives? I do not support that.
Denali says
And thousands of us pay taxes for schools where we have no kids. It is all for the common good.
Connie Sparks says
Let’s vote in new people for Mayor and City Council. We don’t want taxes raised!!! We need fresh blood to step up to challenge the Mayor vote him out 2024. We are all tired of the lies. Need a change.
Denali says
You do realize that this is a county-wide issue, not one limited to the city. Right?
YankeeExPat says
Meanwhile the Desants appointed Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis has stated that The reason Insurance premiums in Florida are so high is do to ” Woke ” Insurance companies doing business in our state.
In the 50’s the fear was the Russians nuking us to cause Americans to build fall-out shelters. In the 60’s it was the Nuclear missiles in Cuba “The Cuban Missile Crisis ”
Now the fear is a guy who goes by the stag name of Gorgeous who wears a Wig, sequined gown and opera gloves is going to put your children in a burlap bag and sell them to a drag show promoter.
To use a Trump quote/description ” The place is a Shit-Hole country !”
Kat says
Does this, at least in part, go back to not levying adequate impact fees when areas are developed? If that is indeed the case, why is there always so much backlash against increasing the impact fees? Didn’t we just have a showdown about this as it relates to the public schools last year? Maybe I have it all wrong, but it seems as if the impact fees get lowered so that the developers have a better profit margin and then we all wind up paying in the end.
c says
@Kat ;
“why is there always so much backlash against increasing the impact fees?”
Actually, there isn’t all that much backlash.
Rather, it’s a question of the CLOUT of the few people/agencies who DO oppose the impact fees – i.e. Realtors Association, our Illustrious Mayor, the Politicians with their hands in the developers pockets, etc.
The People may speak, but the Money talks. And guess which one the political heads listen to?
Read up on the backstory of Why? we lost an excellent Superintendent of Schools just recently – part of the plot was initiated by the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce because they didn’t like Superintendent Cathy Mittelstadt’s views on impact fees (among other things).
https://flaglerlive.com/the-cabal-against-superintendent-cathy-mittelstadt/
Shark says
Won’t be buying anything in Palm Coast !!! Just more money for them to piss away !!!!
C.Sparks says
I shop in Ormond.
Jimbo99 says
Tone Deaf Flagler County ? The headline should read BAB (Broke A** B*tch) Flagler County.
Greg says
Out of money imagine that. Pissed away millions on the old sheriffs office, bought buildings not needed, that were damaged, and now crying for funds. I say tough luck. We the citizens of Palm Coast are maxed out and the city want to add 6% to our electric bills. Where is all the money going that is brought in with all the new homes that are being built?
Brian says
Funny, I came here to retire 11 years ago. Now I’m gonna have to leave here to die.
c says
Ditto
John Stove says
No and Hell NO…..simple as that. Look for cost savings, reductions, grants etc
Live within your means people
JustBeNice says
Stop! Enough already! Residents have to live within our means. So should the cities and counties!
I’ll remember who votes to increase our tax and fee burden come re-elections.
Dennis C Rathsam says
To all the powers that be here in Flagler County…. Stick your taxes up your ass!
Jane Gentile-Youd says
Guess Heidi wants us to do our big shopping in Volusia instead of supporting Flagler businesses. Too bad she cares less about unpaid property taxes; overpayments to outside attorneys.
Using LEGAL ZOOM for our legal issues would solve the $5 million problem easily. Our Legal Department gets close to $1million a year to spend how it chooses. County gives much of this money to Hadeed’s lawyer buddies because he is either too lazy or unprepared ( or both) each and every time the county ( unfortunately) lets themselves get involved in issues Hadeed has no idea what to do.
There you have it – use Legal Zoom,; hire a part time attorney to ‘review’ work prepared by a salaried paralegal and there is the million a year we need for our roads and we can still shop in Flagler without paying.1 higher than sales tax than Volusia.
We don’t need a new library ; we need a fire flight helicopter available 24/7. We don’t need to want Flight schools at our airport; we need services, including decent roads and nice restaurants out west –
Bings Landing Captains gets all the perks including not paying a dime on liquor profits for only $600 a month rent! Imagine – floating docks – on the river, county owned land and owners living in homes worth over a million. And we suckers do nothing about paying attorneys $100,0000 in a 4 year old lawsuit Captains filed in June 2019 saying they have to close shop because building falling apart. 4 years later they are going strong and so is building.
We need code enforcement that makes sure unfit structures are demolished not given phony permits nor allowed to get away without paying property taxes on time. This county is turning into a mismanaged mess in my opinion. How do you see it?
Gina Weiss says
You are right Jane Gentil Youd! Just look at the BS answer Petito gave to you as
she is quoted as saying, “As government public safety is paramount to everything
we do. I also recognize that there is not a price on a person life”. What about the safety impact
on a whole community’s lives with flight school planes flying 200, 300, 400, feet above our
homes posing imminent danger to our lives, they don’t even follow their own airports
minimum safety regs, FAA regs, they don’t enforce our airports fly friendly and noise abatement
policies and procedures, there are these flight school planes crashing all over the country,
killing people, AVAGAS leaded gas being dropped over our environment and seeping into
our water system. They don’t care about peoples lives, they don’t care if people get sick.
A recent walk down memory lane for Petito, remember when Flagler Beach commission
asked for county and city input on 6/21/23 to help come up with a strategic plan on how
to manage visitor’s impacts on its beaches and infrastructure, they were not asking the
county for money they just wanted ideas, now Petito is asking for a letter of support from
the city of PC to support tax raises on us, she is asking for money from us through a raise
in taxes. No truer words were spoken when Jane Gentile Youd echoed through the chambers
of the county building, “YOU SHOULD ALL BE FIRED” This goes for some of the city
council members too!
Old Guy says
Call the flight schools and make an appointment for a tour. Ask questions and become educated about their operations and the regulations they operate under. I think you’ll find that they desire to be good neighbors.
Deborah Coffey says
Another Republican regressive tax. Cut it out.
Jimb99 says
Unfortunate for the businesses in Flagler County. I work out of county and will be doing all my purchases where I work and not in this county. I do that for gas already as we are higher than St. Johns and Volusia.
Been here 24 years now. Never expected this county and city to end up forcing people out. It use to be a welcoming location. Not any more. Will be putting up our house of 24yrs for sale next month and moving to a small town in South Carolina that we found. Can’t wait to move there this fall. Very mild winters, nice summers. Of course I’ll be following remotely to the shit show that will continue here and chuckle that residents let these politicians do what ever they want.
Thanks for 20 good years. (The last 4 really stunk so had to deduct them)
sounds to good to be true says
where is this town in south carolina, we will all move there with you.
Lynn Stote says
JIMBO We always enjoyed your notes on Flagler Live. I will miss your comments. want to wish you the very best–will miss your prose!!!
Tom Hutson says
Sales Tax in Flagler County, Impact Fee Increase, Rollbacks ?????
Simple answer for Now, the only real answer residents have; is electing representatives in 2024 that are not afraid to utter that old Nasty Word, NO!!
Elect representatives that are Not Afraid or Intimidated by the special interest minions!! It’s time to tell the County Manager to take a Break on spending money on items Flagler County does not need.
Time for Both Commissioners and County Manager to set their budgets and then make the departments live within those budgets!! Until that occurs, Flagler County Residents will be footing the bills for foolish spending for years to come. Nothing New for Flagler County.
Earnest T Bass says
Yea were tired of this bullshit here too. In two years from now we cant wait to move and please vote that stupid mayor and the other idiots out next year.