Both are important, relevant, and timely.
#1 is the funding of Fire Service locally. We will discuss whether or not we should increase the MSBU for Escambia County Taxpaying property owners or find some other way to cover an increasingly bigger and bigger shortfall for the Fire Budget locally. Our Current MSBU generates about $19 Million, but costs are slated to escalate to $24 Million over the next several years, meaning additional revenue will need to come from somewhere.
I have proposed a tax swap to eliminate the MSBU and fund fire with a sales tax--however the earliest this could be implemented and voted upon by the citizens will be 2024--due to onerous state requirements that must be met ahead of a referendum for this tax.
#2 is a discussion about increasing costs for the District 1 Medical Examiner's office (Serving the 1st Judicial Circuit--Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton Counties) and also the structure of the funding required to construct a new D1 Medical Examiner's facility. The current facility is woefully inadequate, and the caseload of this office has skyrocketed over the last several years. The budget request for 2023 has been put forward and represents a nearly $800,000.00 year over year increase.
The funding of the capital costs and the funding of the operational costs will be at the center of the discussion--as a new formula is being put forward that is based upon caseload and population and which lowers Escambia's portion of the equation from 52% to 47% of the costs. The sticking point will be not on the operational side of the equation (e.g. many understand that Escambia has the highest caseload and population and therefore should pick up a higher share of the operational costs) but on the fixed asset and capital costs (e.g. some feel that fixed asset costs should be evenly split among all four counties and not pro-rated--as the fixed assets and facilities serve all four counties)
So this will be an interesting discussion.
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