Raise the millage?

If you traveled the state and sat in on city and county commission meetings, one of the persistent themes in all local governments is finding the money to  pay for everything they are involved in — without raising taxes.

You can debate the answers all day and night. You might start, for instance, with whether local governments wouldn’t have such insatiable appetites if they weren’t involved in so many things in which they shouldn’t be involved — say, like funding baseball stadiums; giving tax breaks to recruit businesses; affordable housing funds; or buying huge swaths of land for preservation. All debatable.

And there is hardly a municipality or county in Florida that isn’t grappling with paying millions of dollars a year out of its general fund to feed its underfunded pension system. Longboat Key is certainly among them, though not as bad off as many other jurisdictions. Nonetheless, every $1 million to cover pension benefits is $1 million not available for other uses. 

Revenue sources are limited as well. The primary funding methods for local governments are property taxes and debt. And every elected official who likes his position of power knows this truth: If you raise millage rates, for the most part, your career will be over. 

It was no surprise then, that a few Sarasota County commissioners last week twitched and bristled when Sarasota County Administrator Tom Harmer and Chief Financial Management Officer Tom Botelho floated the idea of raising the county’s millage rate next fiscal year by 0.35 mills. Harmer and Botelho, we’re guessing, were prepping commissioners for the day they present a firm detailed list of capital investments that are going to require more taxation.

So it’s the age-old government question: Where to find the money without raising taxes?

Here’s a thought: When we read last week that Sarasota County is preparing to provide $21.6 million toward a new stadium for the Atlanta Braves in North Port — all of which would come from the county’s tourist-development tax, it caught our attention.

Get a look at this — the growth in tourist-development taxes, also known as “bed taxes” on hotel rooms, in Sarasota County:

2009-10     $9,611,839

2010-11     $11,389,931     +18.5%

2011-12     $13,923,125     +22.2%

2012-13     $14,848,194     +6.6%

2013-14     $16,944,401     +14.1%

2014-15     $19,045,246     +12.4%

2015-16     $20,010,035     +5.5%

By state law, this money can be used only on tourism promotion, beach maintenance and renourishment, the arts, sports stadiums and the Suncoast Aquatic Nature Center (the rowing complex).

We can hear all of the arguments against diverting money away from tourism. But you can also make this argument: Creating trust funds and dedicated uses are tradeoffs for special interests. Sometimes, it’s just a fact some needs are more important than others. This is why we elect people: to make tough choices.

When you think about all local governments having problems funding infrastructures (roads, water, sewers), tourists play a big role in that equation. They use all of those.

This idea likely would go nowhere in Tallahassee; the special interests would kill it. But the laws restricting tourist-tax money uses should be broadened to allow other uses.