Some candidates that find themselves losing their elections badly resort to the same playbook. Attack their opponent, lie about them, pepper them with ridiculous ad hominems, and then resort to scare tactics.
That's what is going in in the D1 commission race.
One candidate just continuously displays his ignorance over and over and over on basic math and government budgeting and accounting. He mistakenly confuses the very good practice of growing the economy, which spins off concomitant revenue increases---with a "tax increase" on homeowners. It's garbage.
And our overall budget is from a LOT of different sources--not simply ad valorem revenue. It has sales tax revenue, income from services provided, MSBU's, MSTU's, grant revenue, Interest income, and LOST revenue as well. And the amounts and type fluctuate over time.
Here is an easy, basic, illustration that even he can (hopefully) understand.
Think of an imaginary town of Stevenville--if there is one resident and his house is worth $100,000.00 and his tax on that house to the Stevenville treasury is $1,000.00----if another identical house is added to the Stevenville tax roll the next year and that identical house is also valued at $100,000.00 and generates the same amount in taxes as the first house $1,000.00-----did the town of Stevenville really raise your taxes by 100% when they collected $2,000.00 in year 2--$1,000.00 each from 2 residents?
Answer: of course not. Stevenville grew the economy by 100% and doubled their revenue so they could provide more services and add additional staff because now they have double the population to serve. Think on that, imagine larger examples, expanded services, etc. it's pretty basic.....but the bottom line is this. If Stevenville didn't change the millage rate, did not raise it, then they didn't raise your taxes...
(And neither has Escambia County "raised your taxes" either---- by the way)
