Should St. Pete Beach's Property Tax Rate be Lowered?

St. Pete Beach residents will see a reduction in their property taxes next year after St. Pete Beach city commissions voted 3-2 to set the tentative millage rate at the July 23 meeting. 

The proposed millage rate of 2.85 mils is a slight decrease from the existing 3.28 millage rate. It is the same rate taxpayers paid in 2012, but because of improving property values the dollar amount the public would pay will be higher. 

Taxpayers will save more than $42 a year per $100,000 in property values, according to the city. According to city documents, the reduction in property taxes will not require the use of reserve funds for next year's budget. 

Mayor Steve McFarlin, commissioner Jim Parent and commissioner Marvin Shavlan voted for the tentative millage rate. Commissioners Melinda Pletcher and Lorraine Huhn voted no. 

Pletcher and Huhn argued that decreasing tax revenues at a time when there is a laundry list of projects that need to get done is not prudent. 

"I don’t understand how we can in good conscious talk in terms of a reduction in the taxes or the millage rate," Huhn said. " ...  This is not a beauty contest. This is where we say 'OK, this is where the city is and this is what the city needs." 

Huhn said St. Pete Beach should have stuck with the current millage rate or gone with the 3.0 millage rate proposed by the citizen budget and finance committee. 

Shavlan said when voters approved the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office takeover of the city's police force, they believed doing so would lower the city's millage rate. 

"I think that is what we lead them to believe," Shavlan said. "I think that’s the impression that we left."

The mayor agreed. 

"I believe we inferred that if you people vote the sheriff in, you go back to the (2012) rate," McFarlin said. 

The tentative millage rate set at the city's July 23 meeting is not final. The rate cannot be increased but commissioners can later vote to lower the rate even more. 

The budget hearings to adopt the fiscal year 2014 budget and millage rate will be Sept. 3 and Sept. 18.