Last year the Palm Coast City Council threw a curveball to city management by passing a rollback millage rate, a provision that prevents homeowners from having to pay increased property taxes even as their home appreciates. The measure's immediate effect on city business is a reduction in revenue from prior projections, as the city often budgets for a modest bump in property taxes as homes increase their worth. The longest-running champion of holding the line on these taxes, or even decreasing them, is Vice Mayor Ed Danko.
The City Council has entered preliminary discussions about where they'll set the millage rate for the next fiscal year, and Danko is again advocating for a rollback rate. "People have been hurt so bad by this economy, especially our seniors," Danko said in an interview this week. "We need to give our homeowners, our residents, a break."
Danko has tried in his other years on the City Council to enact a rollback rate (he was elected in 2020), and outside of last year has been unsuccessful. This will be his final year with a hand in the process; Danko has chosen to run for a seat on the County Commission instead of seeking a second term in Palm Coast. Certainly it would be a feather in his campaign's cap to claim he spearheaded the successful death of a tax increase two years running. It will, as it appears now, be easier said than done.
"We still have to be able to find funds in order to enhance our stormwater and our swale system maintenance programs," added Council member Nick Klufas. "Things have just gotten more expensive completely across the board, and we do our best job at the city with finances trying to find anything in the budget that we're able to squeeze a little more juice out of." Still, Danko feels the city can find further areas to cut the budget in order to allow for the rollback, something he sees as an absolute priority.
"I'm looking at tightening belts," Danko added. "I'm looking at making cuts of those things that we do not absolutely [have to] have. We must have roads, we must have water, things of that nature. But there are things that we can live without, just like you do at home when you look at your budget. Maybe you want a swimming pool or tennis court this year and you realize you really need to put a roof over your head and pay your home insurance and put food on the table."
The necessity of adopting a rollback rate is something Danko's colleagues were more in agreement with him on last year. "We can’t afford a rollback, not a full rollback,” Council member Theresa Carli Pontieri said at last week's meeting. "Not if we’re looking at the infrastructure needs of our city." She also prodded Danko to name specific sources of funding to balance out a rollback rate. Danko didn't have any to propose at that time, and he again shied away from specifics this week. "I'm not gonna go through any specific areas at the moment, because we've just begun this budget process," he said. "But as we go through these items line-by-line, we are going to find a lot of places where we can live without certain things."
"He's remained steadfast, which I would give him credit for," Klufas said of Danko's persistence. "But I think at this point in the story of Palm Coast, we have to listen to our residents and realize that the quality of life is what brought them here and if we don't continue to maintain a high level service, it's going to kind of lose its allure. It'll become just another city."
