Fla. City Considers Fire Fees to Raise Revenue

April 11--The unpopular fire assessment fee that the city killed earlier this year may not be completely dead.

The City Commission agreed Tuesday to leave open the option to bring back the fee later this year to raise much-needed revenue and avoid increasing taxes.

At their workshop meeting Tuesday, City manager David Harden said the city needed to move forward with an agreement that requires the city to provide the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser with certain assessment information by July 28.

"It doesn't commit you to do anything," he told commissioners. "You can always recall it, but it does give you that option."

The fire fee first came to the officials' attention in September 2009, when Harden said the city could collect as much as $3 million a year. He supported the fee, saying the city could afford to lower the tax rate next year if it had the additional revenue.

But officials at the time weren't convinced that the fee, which charged a certain amount depending on square footage, didn't amount to just another tax.

While facing a $3 million deficit in July 2011, Harden again proposed the fee as a way to plug the hole in the budget.

In November, the City Commission approved moving forward with the fee, which the city could use to pay for fire services and free up the same amount in the general fund to plug the deficit.

Officials approved the $93 million budget in September counting on the fire fee, but it was too late to include it in the property tax bill and officials planned on billing residents directly instead.

But residents showed up in droves to the public hearing in January opposing the fee, so commissioners again agreed to do without it, opting instead to take out money from reserves and put several projects on hold to cover the $3 million deficit.

"I believe we're going to see another [reduction] in property values and those of you who have been around know we have cut all the things we can cut," Mayor Woodie McDuffie said of having the option to use the fee. "If we start cutting again, this time the residents are going to notice."

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