Bug board approves property tax hike
to pay for building, increased costs
BY TERRY SCHMIDA
A tax rise that will add $8 to the annual bill of a Monroe County property assessed at $400,000, passed with little fanfare, at a Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) meeting held on the evening of Sept. 14.
The district’s operating budget for fiscal 2015-16 will be about $10.7 million, and will draw some $1.4 million from the agency’s $4 million in financial reserves.
“We had a slight increase in our chemical costs, so we’ve increased our chemical budget,” said district spokeswoman Beth Ranson. “Plus, we’ve also got higher medical costs for our employees this year. We’re also still dealing with some loss of overhead from the Navy contract we lost last October. That’s about $240,000. We’ve had to increase [property taxes] so that we don’t deplete our reserves past a certain level.”
The biggest budget item, however, is the FKMCD’s new Lower Keys facility on Big Coppitt Key. Once that edifice is completed, the district will move workers from its current offices, in what is known as the Easter Seals building on College Road, Stock Island.
The bug board was put on notice last year that its $1 annual lease with the city of Key West would not be maintained, as the Stock Island structure was earmarked to become a facility for the homeless.
Accordingly, the district purchased a lot on Big Coppitt for about $800,000 and began to make plans for the eventual move.
The budget for the fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, was passed unanimously by the five-person board, but it was not without its detractors.
District 2 Commissioner Phil Goodman said he voted for the package – with reservations.
“I was not in favor of the design of the building,” he said. “In my opinion we’re overbuilding. I wanted us to build a 35,000 square-foot structure, instead of the 42,000 square-foot one we’re going to have. I wanted us to move more administrative staff to Marathon, but instead we’re going to have to build five more offices on Big Coppitt. However, the board approved it, so we all have to deal with it. It’s going to end up costing us about $3.5. million.”
Goodman, who is in his second four-year term, called the operating budget “similar to what we had in 2008.
“This is actually the first time I’ve voted to increase the budget,” he said. “Some of the things we’ve got planned are going to cost more, and unfortunately, these cost increases are going up faster than our ability to trim our expenses. We’ve been investing in a lot of new technology, but I think we need a bit more time until we get to the point where the new technology will begin to generate noticeable returns for us.”
The new tax rate is 10.3 percent above rollback, which is the rate where tax revenues would be the same as the 2014-15 fiscal year.

 

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