MONROE COUNTY TO HOST CHARTER COUNTY WORKSHOP ON MONDAY, NOV. 6 AT 10 A.M. IN MARATHON AND ONLINE
MONROE COUNTY, FL – The Monroe County Board of County Commissioners will host a public workshop discussing the draft charter county proposal tentatively scheduled to go before the voters at the Nov. 5, 2024 general election. The workshop will be held Monday, Nov. 6, 2023 at 10 a.m. at Monroe County’s Marathon Government Center and hybrid via Zoom webinar. The workshop will also be viewable online, channel 76 on Comcast, channel 99 on U-Verse, and other channels like Hulu, Roku, and Apple TV.
Future public meetings will be scheduled in 2024. More information about Monroe County’s charter county discussions can be found at www.monroecounty-fl.gov/chartercounty.
About Monroe County’s Draft Charter County Discussion
Monroe County faces a daunting challenge in the coming years to prepare its infrastructure to become resilient to withstand the predicted effects of climate change. Engineers used scientific evidence to model a road adaptation program to determine which roads will need to be elevated or adapted to withstand the rising waters to allow continued access to homes and businesses. Without program implementation, access to homes and businesses will dwindle over the years as widespread flooding continues. Other planning efforts include floodproofing and elevating existing infrastructure, planning for the resilience of the County’s parks, and preparing for ever-increasing traffic and aging infrastructure, among other resilience needs.
The County identified a source of funding – the Charter County and Regional Transportation System Sales Surtax – available to counties that have adopted a home rule charter to help address these problems by shifting a majority of that burden to tourists. Experience shows that tourists pay about 65% of the existing sales tax in Monroe County. Since state law already authorizes this tax, local voters have the option to approve it if they first vote to approve a County Charter at one referendum and then later vote to approve the tax at a subsequent referendum.
Charter County Information
- A charter serves as a “County Constitution” in the same manner that a City Charter serves as that municipality’s constitution.
- Charters confer powers, duties, or privileges on the County in place of the default provisions for non-charter counties that are conferred by the state constitution.
- Charters must be approved, along with any amendments, by the voters of the County.
- Charters can create a more responsive County government by authorizing:
- Citizen initiatives to enact laws through binding referenda, whereas residents of non-charter counties do not enjoy that power.
- Voters to recall County Commissioners if they feel they are not responsive to voters, whereas residents of non-charter counties do not have that power.
- Voters to impose term limits on commission seats.
- Voters to increase the number and change the method of electing commissioners (currently, 5 commissioners are elected countywide and must live in the district they represent.)
- The Commissioners have stated that they have no interest in changing the existing relationship between the County and the give municipalities so the draft charter would preserve municipal independence.
- The Commissioners stated they want a simple charter that leaves the current structure of County government intact but authorizes them to ask voters to approve the Charter County Transportation Surtax.
- The 20 charter counties in Florida are home to approximately 75 percent of Florida’s residents.
- Two charter counties – Columbia (69,698) and Wakulla (33,764) – have fewer residents than Monroe (82,874), according to the 2020 census.
More information on the differences between charter counties and non-charter counties can be found at: https://www.fl-counties.com/themes/bootstrap_subtheme/sitefinity/documents/basic-differences-between-charter-and-non-charter-counties-pdf-.pdf
The transportation surtax would function much like the current one-penny infrastructure sales surtax that has been in place for decades. In 2022, County voters approved extending that tax with over 65 percent approval. Experience has shown that roughly 2/3 of sales taxes collected in the Florida Keys are paid by visitors, so the transportation surtax would be expected to shift the majority of the cost of the transportation and transit improvements from local taxpayers to visitors.
Transportation and Transit Improvement Projects
- Roads (active) ($36 million)
a. Sands Subdivision: Current cost ‐ $22 million; available grant $8.1 million
b. Twin Lakes: Current estimate $11 million; grants of $9.4 million
c. Stillwright Point: Old estimate $22 million; design grant of $1.5 million - Roads (in the pipeline) ( $44.5 million + $1.07 billion)
a. Conch Key: estimate $8 million; Resilient FL grant $4 million (50%)
b. Winston Waterways: estimated $31 million; Hoping for Resilient Florida $15.5 million
c. Big Coppitt: estimated $50 million; Hoping for Resilient Florida $25 million
d. Remaining roads modeled to need work by 2030 estimated at $1.07B - Bridges ($68 million)
a. Sugarloaf: design complete; estimated at $5‐6 million
b. Similar Sound: estimated at $7‐8 million
c. Card Sound: estimated at $54 million by 2030
Other Bridge information to consider: Sammy’s Creek Bridge serves 2 houses, Geiger Key Bridge serves 3 houses, and the No Name Key Bridge serves 42 houses with a replacement likely more than $20 million (it is almost the same length as Card Sound Bridge)
Additional Transportation Sales Surtax Infomation
- Can only be used for transportation and roads needs, such as:
- Bridge Repairs and Replacements
- Road repairs
- Elevating roads and similar roadway adaptation projects,
- Creating a Countywide transit system aimed at reducing traffic on US 1
- Sales tax keeps ad valorem (property) taxes lower. Monroe currently has one of the lowest ad valorem tax rates in the state due to its reliance on the infrastructure sales surtax.
- The transportation surtax would function much like the current one-penny infrastructure sales surtax that has been in place for decades.
- Transportation/Roads operations are funded with gas tax revenue that has steadily declined as vehicles become more fuel-efficient and electric vehicle use increases.
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