Monroe County Mayor Jim Scholl joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
Cutbacks could affect Monroe County.
Scholl said, “It’s not just the state and the county, but the federal government too, and we’re still waiting on the federal government budget to be finalized, although they did have a big vote yesterday, but they still have some other portions of that to do. Of course, the reason it’s all important is it all dovetails together. We use federal dollars to leverage state dollars for a lot of the infrastructure projects and capital projects that we can do and of course, the environmental funding. We did get the Stewardship dollars for out of the state this year, but we get $20 million a year to help us protect and preserve our environment down here, but those dollars are always in in jeopardy. But the real issues have been the expectations from Washington on down through the state to reduce spending across the board, so that every level of government is focusing on their core functions. Of course, health, safety and welfare are those big issues and for our property taxes, which was a big discussion this year in Florida, there were factions that wanted to eliminate property taxes. There were factions that wanted to supplant that with other revenues. But our property taxes in Monroe County anyway, 90% of what the property taxes go for are the sheriff’s office, the fire department, the EMS folks and then we use the property taxes to support our constitutional officers. So for the most part, you’re paying for those direct services, and then our other revenues and the property taxes are only about 30% of the total revenue for the county. So we have many other revenue sources, although some of those have been significantly reduced. So we are working very hard, and we had our first budget meeting up in Marathon on Tuesday, and I think it went reasonably well, although we did end up eliminating 30 positions, and in that there were about seven or eight layoffs. But just to take those out of the budget, because personnel is the most expensive thing we have that our ad valorem, our property taxes go for. So we eliminated positions, we reduced some funding for programs, eliminated some programs, and then also for our cost of living increase for the county we had agreed to the cost of living increase to be 2.9% for the inflation for the year. Some of the other entities that we administer their budgets wanted 5% but we held that to 2.9% as well. So lots of input and lots of earmarks in the budget to reduce our costs significantly and still be able to balance the budget and not increase taxes by very much. So it was a long discussion, and I know a lot of our nonprofits that we have traditionally supported are disappointed. We eliminated some funding for those, and some of them, we reduced by 50%, but there are other revenue streams out there. There’s foundations and other government grants that are available, but to continue to fund them at the levels we were just wasn’t supportable with the budget constraints we were operating in.”
There could be a reduction coming in with sales and bed taxes as well and the Conch Connect program will be discontinued.
Scholl said, “These are necessary things to try to not have costs escalate so much that people can’t afford to live here, and that’s a real challenge. Of course, the biggest cost for most homeowners down here is windstorm insurance. I also attended a meeting the end of last week where Citizens Insurance, their whole senior staff, they were all down here to meet with us and have discussions about windstorm because still, 90% of the people in the Florida Keys use Citizens as their insurer, because there aren’t a lot of options down here and we pay close to $1 billion dollars more in insurance premiums than we’ve ever had in claims down here. So we feel like it’s a little bit unfair because of the exposure down here. It would be rare, not impossible, but rare, that a storm would start in either Key West or Key Largo and run the entire length of the Keys and be total devastation. Historically, the storms have gone across the Keys somewhere, Irma being the most recent one, where the eye of the storm went across Cudjoe. Of course, the major impacts were all up the Keys from there. But again, the area of damage, while certain portions of it were significant, but when a storm goes across the Keys, it’s not like it goes 200 miles inland. It goes across the Keys, and we have our damage, but they don’t take that into account in their models, and we have the highest insurance rates, and we don’t get credit for the strongest building standards, and we don’t get credit for the actual historical risk. So we’re trying to get them to reduce the premiums down here, so that would make our whole Florida Keys more affordable for the homeowners, and especially, those that have homesteaded properties. So all these considerations go into the cost of living down here, and we try to minimize that direct property tax cost as best we can.”
In the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget, homesteaded residents of about $516,000 would see a $5.30 monthly increase in county wide property taxes.
Scholl said, “We have two budget hearings in September, I think, the 3rd and the 10th, I believe, but those two budget hearings are the formal meetings where we review the budget at that point and then we will finalize what we will have in the budget, and that will translate into the final millage. We set a temporary millage. We had to declare that this past Tuesday. That goes to the Property Appraiser, and that goes into the truth in millage, the TRIM statements that go out to all the property owners as a here’s a potential of what your taxes will be, and every one of the taxing entities has that input, so right now, we set the millage higher than what we expect it would be, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty going forward, and especially with the FEMA discussions that are going on, and what they are now saying would be required in order to qualify for FEMA reimbursements, that the state and local governments are going to have to be more financially responsible for potential disasters. So that’s a really big concern at this point. So we want to try to be fiscally responsible. So the millage is set artificially a little higher right now because of that uncertainty.”
There was also discussion about food trucks at the commission meeting recently.
Scholl said, “There were certain complaints from residents and businesses about the proliferation of food trucks and the state has a statute regarding food trucks, but that that deals with ones that are mobile and go somewhere every day. What we call food trucks down here are really very small, permanent business locations. The ordinances that the county had, allowed people to be on a property for six months as a temporary means, but we’ve been renewing those so they become more permanent. Some of them have very permanent type installations. So under the current ordinances that we had then they could have gone through a permitting process to become essentially a structure on a piece of property, and that would be longer term, but that process was looked at as particularly onerous for the small business owners. So our initial draft was that they could go through the building permit process and be permitted, and that wasn’t received very well, so we directed our planning staff to go back and create a specific ordinance for these food vendors, and they’re not really mobile vendors in the traditional terms, so we’ve got to figure that out so that they can, number one, be legal for a longer term and also then comply with all the necessary safety and health inspections. I know the ones that we had there, the business owners that were there spoke about, they do get inspected through the Department of Business and Professional Regulations, but not all of them are, and that’s the point, too, and it needs to have sufficient regulation for health and safety, and then also, again, if they’re going to be on a property long term, that needs to be coordinated with the property owners. So we’ll get that figured out. But in the meantime, though, they’re all going to be able to stay where they are and can renew their temporary permits. So it’ll be at least a year, I would guess, for us to go through that entire process to create the ordinance that then they will have to sign up to have that type of permit.”
Our county attorney, Bob Schillinger, got two prestigious awards.
Scholl said, “We presented those at the meeting and recognized by the state of Florida Bar Association as the best municipal government attorney in the state of Florida. Well deserved for Bob. Then he also was recognized by the Florida Association of Counties, the attorney division there, for his outstanding service to not only Monroe County, but also to the Florida Association of Counties. So a great honor. And he has a fantastic team of attorneys that really serve Monroe County very well. So a shout out to Bob and then also Michelle Lincoln was recognized for becoming the president of the Florida Association of Counties for this year. So she will serve in that capacity, representing all 67 counties and giving us even a greater voice in Tallahassee as we go forward. So two very, very great Monroe County residents and serving our county and the public down here with exemplary fashion.”