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Third act could bring curtain down on PSF&RD
By HARLAN WEIKLE
| Article published on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/010407_bee-01.jpg) |
| Pinellas Suncoast Fire and Rescue Chief Russ Livernois, center, honors Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Cressman, Civilian Commendation Award recipient, left, and Heinz Foertsch, Volunteer of the Year. |
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INDIAN ROCKS BEACH – Feeling more like a strategy session than board meeting, Pinellas Suncoast Fire & Rescue District commissioners met Tuesday night to plan a third and perhaps final effort to buoy funding of the fire district. A referendum in November increasing the non ad valorem household assessment by $70, from $190 to $260 failed, leaving the district facing a financial shortfall by year’s end.
Commissioner Bob McEwen summed it up this way.
“At the end of this year, we will probably cease to exist,” alluding to the probability that given the district’s current funding level the organization would be close to default by September 2007.
McEwen went on to say that, failing a solution to the district’s financial woes, the county would have no choice but to fill the vacuum created by the inevitable service interruption. That would mean district residents owning property valued at $100,000, after the homestead exemption and assuming an average county mill rate of .002 would pay $200 or nearly equal the current assessment. A homeowner with property valued at $1 million would experience a 10-fold increase for fire protection at $2,000.
Seat 4 Commissioner James Mortellite, whose brother is a district firefighter, said the board should consider bankruptcy options pending the fiscal year end.
Commission Chairman John Todia, absent from the meeting, sent an e-mail detailing his position regarding the funding issue; McEwen read Todia’s assessment into the meeting record. It called for resubmitting the proposed increased assessment of $260 or seeking a charter change enabling the district to, “levy flat rate assessments annually … not to exceed the annual budget … and maintain a 3-month emergency reserve.”
McEwen hastened to point out that voters under state law do not have the ability to change charters by referendum; charter changes, he said, require legislative action but at least, he said, “it would allow the fire district to act as all other tax supported government entities do,” and, “base their increases on budget.”
Commissioner Daniel Madura agreed to, once again, propose the flat fee assessment adding, however, that he felt it constituted a regressive form of taxation; assessing equal tax amounts for very different property values.
Reporting his own research into the district’s charter, Commissioner Tom Hafner told the board that he had found language, authorizing levy assessments, suggesting that, as such, a one-time levy of $70 might be feasible under the charter followed by an annual surcharge, perhaps 10 percent yearly, thereafter. Hafner said that while the term “surcharge” does not exist in the current document, it is reasonable to imply that surcharge is by definition simply a charge added to another charge such as an assessment. He said he had asked the district’s lawyers to examine the issue.
Included in Tuesday night’s agenda, board members oversaw the oath of office administered to newly appointed Firefighter/EMT Matthew Carpenter. In addition, awards were presented to Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Cressman – Civilian Commendation; Lt. Ray Norton – Firefighter/Paramedic of the Year; James Fehl – Firefighter/EMT of the Year; and Heinz Foertsch, Volunteer of the Year.
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Article published on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007
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