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Sarasota landlords are incensed by the way Sarasota City Hall circumvented the initiative of the Florida State Legislature to hold down property taxes.
To show their displeasure, the Sarasota landlords association has started a petition drive to "recall" the members of the Sarasota Commission. The landlord association's 500+ members control roughly 5,000 units in the city of Sarasota and Sarasota County.
On June 14, the legislature passed a two-phased property tax reform bill. The first phase affects taxing districts requiring them to roll back their millage rates to 2006-2007 levels. Special taxing districts and fiscally limited cities and counties will be required to make additional cuts of 3%. The second phase addresses a new "Super Homestead Exemption" if approved by Florida voters in the January, 2008 election.
The new millage rates will affect the Florida property tax rates and will be reflected in November 2007 tax bills. All current property tax exemptions remain the same. Florida voters will vote on the Super Exemption in the January 29, 2008 election. If the "super exemption" is approved, the Property Appraiser's Offices will provide homeowners who currently have the Save Our Homes cap with the opportunity to either keep their current cap, or to switch to the new Super Exemption.
Once the legislation is enacted into law, Property Appraiser's Offices will be able to provide information explaining the process in greater detail.
The changes to Florida property tax law included an "override button" that allows local community commissioners to "override" the new property tax rollback and caps provisions. The Sarasota commissioners voted unanimously on July 19th to enact that override provision and that is what has the Sarasota real estate investor/owners so upset. The Sarasota commissioners are, so far, the only group to have "pushed the override button."
Sarasota commissioners approved a property tax rate slightly below the city's current rate of 2.9022 mills, but well above the 2.5849 set for the city in the new property tax legislation. [A mill is $1 of tax for each $1,000 of a property value.]
The sentiments of the Sarasota area landlords echo the feelings of many small businesses as well as Florida snowbirds about the recent property tax changes. They see the new law as a tax break only for those already getting the biggest break; Florida's homesteaded property owners.
According to the Sarasota Herald Tribune, Kurt Wenner, research analyst for a Tallahassee-based group said, "Landlords have been getting hammered. So have small businesses, snowbirds, and anybody who owns any property that is not homesteaded.
The proposed Florida "Save Our Homes" constitutional amendment, which caps property tax increases for homesteaders, has put the burden of spiraling taxes on the back of non-homesteaders."
"Property tax collections have been growing at double-digit rates for the last few years, and a large numbers of taxpayers haven't really had any significant tax increases because of "Save Our Homes," he said.
A spokesperson for the Sarasota City Commissioners had nothing to say about the recall effort, but said board members had done their best to trim the budget before overriding the Legislature's spending cap.
"There's a consequence to going too far. "There is a significant loss of services, particularly with the police department. I thought we were as even handed as we could be," he said.
Harvey Vengroff who owns 1,400 units in Sarasota and Manatee counties,leading the recall effort.
The Sarasota Herald Tribune reported Vengroff as saying,"They aren't doing anything for people who rent, and those are the people who need it more than homeowners, aren't they?"
Landlords may be unhappy, but according to an article in the Sarasota Herald Tribune, removing public officials from office by recall turns out to be nearly impossible.
"Voting in a way that citizens disagree with isn't a legal basis for a recall," said Bob Fournier, Sarasota's city attorney.
Those seeking the removal must, within a 30-day period, gather a minimum number of signatures from registered voters in each recall official's district. And that is the "easy part. After that there is a very complicated
series of legal hurdles that must be overcome before such a recall effort could suceed.
Perhaps the biggest impact of this action by Sarasota area landlords will be that it crystalizes what many non-homesteaded property owners have felt for some time; that while all agree that
something must be done to hold down property taxes in the state of Florida, it won't be easy and its effects will be felt unevenly.
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