Property values holding up in Belleair Shore
By DAVE SHELTON
Article published on Wednesday, April 23, 2008  |
BELLEAIR SHORE – Despite sinking property values throughout the area, Mayor John Robertson says Belleair Shore has held up better than its neighbors.
The mayor pointed to a recent report by Pinellas County Property Appraiser Jim Smith that showed the taxable value of property in the county had dropped 8 percent last year. Belleair Shore properties, valued at a total of $170 million for taxes, dropped the least, percentage-wise, among the county’s 24 municipalities, Robertson noted.
The mayor said the report indicates the taxable value of homes in Belleair Shore fell just 3.2 percent – far less than property values in neighboring municipalities such as Largo, where a drop of 8.3 percent was reported.
Countywide, taxable property values dropped 8 percent in the past year, according to the appraiser’s report, falling from a total of $80 billion to $73.7 billion.
Smith said the falling values are the result of a failing real estate market and changes by the state in property tax codes including the Homestead Exemption and portability of the Save Our Homes caps.
Robertson said the sinking revenues from property taxes should have little, if any, affect on the town budget next year.
“We might have to go up a half a millage point or none at all,” he said.
For the past two years Belleair Shore has had the lowest municipal budget in the county, less than $90,000 in operating expenses.
In other financial news facing the town, Robertson reported that city funds considered “at risk” in the state’s troubled investment pool has dropped to less than $34,000. The town has some $333,000 in undesignated, surplus cash in the state pool that had invested heavily in the sub-prime real estate market.
With the collapse of that market, managers of the investment pool which contains millions in municipal, county and state funds was frozen in November to halt a run on the money.
Robertson said that in December, the pool managers split the municipal investments so that some cash was removed from the funds that are at-risk. In January, Robertson explained, all of Belleair Shore’s money was put into the safer investments by the pool managers – except for about $47,000.
As parts of that pool have matured, the city’s share has dropped almost weekly, he said, so that it has further reduced the money the city could lose if the pool collapses.
The mayor said he understands that all of the money invested in the risky funds will be safe by the end of 2008.
“I don’t think we have much to worry about,” he concluded.
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Article published on Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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