The Village of Wellington had a meeting last month about raising our taxes. We all emailed the mayor and all the counsel members that we do not want our taxes raised here in Wellington Florida.

The whole idea of our property taxes to be lowered that was placed on this past January's ballot was to not raise our taxes. This measure was overwhelmingly passed by the voters. The message was loud and clear, we want lower property taxes. So the State of Florida had to comply with the voters and lower our property taxes. In November we will have another chance to vote to lower our property taxes even more by eliminating the school tax from our property tax bills.

The Realtor® Association of The Palm Beaches is very active in getting the word out about when the meetings are and encourages all the Realtors® to get out and get our voices heard on the Village and county levels. At the last County meeting, the Realtors® were overwhelmingly outspoken about not raising taxes on the county level.
Read my post here to find out about the power of unity when you get together to get our voices heard.

But this is not the end of the fight. Government and politicians love to spend money that they did not earn. Whenever they want more money their first suggestion is always to raise taxes. They will keep trying to sneak this in on us. Make sure you are aware of meeting going on around the county where the commissioners may try to raise our taxes.

Realtors®showed up in person and via emails to voice our concern and to not raise taxes in the Village of Wellington. The mayor and the counsel members of the Village of Wellington received thousands of emails to not raise taxes.

What part of us voting to lower our property taxes do they not understand? The property taxes were lowered on the state level and now the Village wants to raise our taxes.

This is the response that our mayor had to the Realtor® Association:

Realtors^®,

Thank you for all of your emails. You should know that the Wellington Village Council is scheduled to adopt TRIM rates at the July 8, 2008 Village Council meeting. It is Staff’s recommendation that an ad valorem millage rate of 2.34 mills and a non-ad valorem assessment of $146 for drainage be adopted.  It must be noted and understood that while the proposed ad valorem and non ad valorem tax rates will remain the same as last year, these rates will result in a $1.6 million decrease in revenue to the Village due to the decline in property values.  The only proposed increase in Wellington fees is the assessment for solid waste and recycling services, and that increase is a reflection of the contractual increase from Waste Management.

I would like to reiterate that the Village of Wellington is preparing to adopt a balanced budget with no proposed tax increases for Fiscal Year 2008/09 which will result in a significant decrease in revenue.  That being said, Village staff is committed to finding and implementing innovative and cost-saving measures in order to continue to maintain the current levels of service to our residents.  

I hope that I have clarified the issue for you. I would be happy to attend a meeting in your office to address any issues or concerns or to answer any questions you might have.  Please contact Kathy Tatgenhorst at 791-4097, at the Village of Wellington, and she will arrange a time for me to come out and visit your office.     

Sincerely,

Darell Bowen

Mayor

Stay tuned for more information on our tax bill that will be on our ballots this November. This will make a huge difference in our property tax bill. I will explain more about what it entails in a post in the near future.

Remember that here in Florida we do not have income tax and we have no sales tax on food. Since we are a very large tourist state we get a lot of tourist revenue in the form of bed tax.

We will also begin to discuss ways in which the Village of Wellington can start to develop into a revenue producing town instead of just depending on its' residents property taxes for everything.

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Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Wellington Florida Tax Update- Response To Lower Taxes By Our Mayor*