Monroe County Commissioner Craig Cates joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
A group of folks from the county met with the governor yesterday.
Cates said, “We were there at the Cabinet meeting at nine o’clock in the Capitol, the governor and the Cabinet meet, I think, like four times a year, but this was for our ROGOs that we’ve been working on for years. Started out with 3500 units and we did the survey, and the residents really wanted the minimal amount to keep us from takings cases, to protect us. Jim Mooney and our state senator Ana Maria Rodriguez, they finalized the instead of the 3500 over 40 years, they brought it down to 1/4, it was 900 over 10 years. We were able to put guardrails in there for the majority of them go to people that will earn 70% of their income in the Keys. So they won’t be transient rentals, and they go to single family lots, only one per person, because we want them to to take away the takings cases that we potentially are going to have with several other guardrails to protect us and the citizens of Monroe County. Well, we had to get that approval from Commerce Department, which is under the governor and the cabinet. So they read that because we’re an area of critical concern. They read that yesterday into the record and was voted unanimously so we can move forward now, change our comp plans to accept those units, and they’ll be distributed to the Keys by the amount of vacant lots each area has. Key West is going to get 36 over the 10 year period. Islamorada will be 72. Marathon will be 135 and Monroe County will get 657, which unincorporated Monroe County has the most lots. So we can start that process now changing the comp plan, which will take a little bit of time, but all that is finally put into motion for sure.”
Will the issue arise again?
Cates said, “This should hold us. The big concerns were the takings cases. As long as there’s a process that you can get a building permit, it’s not takings. You have regulations and rules in place, so you have to work through those also, at least 10 years, that’ll be we won’t have that issue. And what will happen is that maybe infrastructure change by then, sea level rise may have an effect in 10 years. There’s a lot of things that could happen or could be corrected that they won’t have the impact they have now.”
What’s going on with property tax proposals?
Cates said, “It was narrowed down in the Third Committee meeting, which was the final one before it goes to the floor, it was narrowed down to one. And the one is HKR bill 209 and what it reads a property insurance relief, homestead exemption, non school property tax. Basically what that does, it authorizes additional $200,000 exemption on your homestead exemption on non school property taxes or homesteaded properties, for homestead properties that carry property insurance coverage, so you have to have insurance to get this exemption, and the whole idea of it now is to help you with the high insurance rates. Defined in the bill is a comprehensive, multi parallel property insurance, which would probably classify as wind and flood insurance for your property, and prohibits local governments from reducing their law enforcement, firefighters and first responders funding, requiring them to maintain funding at the 2025 to 2026 or ‘26 to ‘27 level, whichever is higher, even if property tax revenue declines because of exemption. That could have a huge impact. They say the statewide estimate is $6.6 billion and $8.6 billion annually thereafter, was the impact to have, so that funding will have to be made up somewhere, and you can’t lower the firefighters and public safety first responders. So that means other services will have to be cut. In Monroe County, the homesteaded properties is a much smaller amount. I believe it’s just under 20%, is the percentage of homesteaded properties in Monroe County. Some other rural counties, their homesteaded properties are 80% to 90% of their ad valorem tax properties. So that’s a huge impact on some. How they can be able to do this, it’s going to be very difficult. The thing about it is this can change on the floor, because we’re told by our legislative affairs person that anything that went past the first committee meeting can be added as an amendment to the floor and approved on the floor. So this, when it gets the floor, it could have all kinds of changes, but this is the latest on here as we’re working through this issue. But it still has to go to the voters and have a 60% majority to approve it before it goes into the constitution of the state of Florida.”
Has there been discussion on how Monroe County will make up the income?
Cates said, “We are discussing that basically every day, all our departments and our administrator where the cuts could be, what would we be losing. Each director is working up through their departments where what they could cut and the impacts that will have on the services that we provide. So nothing is, in stone yet, but we are working to see the impact that we will have and where we can make up money otherwise. We’re moving forward with charging parking fees and entrance fees to some of our parks for non residents to try to make up the funding to maintain the park. So yes, we’re working through it, but it’s absolutely going to have an impact, and we’re going to have to see where that goes. The fire departments, you’ve got to keep the funding the same. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t downsize the departments, if that’s what it takes to be able to to keep them open. I mean, the reality is you need a certain amount of money to run these services, and it takes quite a bit of money to do that, as we all know, and everybody needs to make enough money to live in the Keys, because it is expensive. So where it’s not all gloom and doom. We’ll work through it. I’m sure we’ll get there. It’s just the amount of impact it will have.”
Are the legislators proposing this trying to help with solutions?
Cates said, “I think they’re all discussing that. That’s why it was narrowed down to this number, the least impact, maybe not the least impact, but they know that money would go towards insurance that is a big impact on the residents of the state of Florida, so I’m glad that it’s going there, not money to just to be spent, yeah, somewhere, if it does end up happening, so that’ll benefit the residents there. I sure would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy holidays, happy new year. Stay safe. Spend time with your family and realize how blessed we are to be in this country, the United States of America.”