Volusia County, FL - At Thursday's Volusia County Council meeting, council members discussed their plans for the 2017-2018 budget and the County's property tax rate.
The County agreed to move forward with the proposed 6.1 percent property tax rate. This is not much of a tax hike on Volusia County residents as the general fund property tax rate for the 2016-2017 fiscal year was the same except for a .0025 increase for the Volusia Forever Fund.
Council members expressed their wishes to lower it, however, projects like the First Step Shelter, Votran bus expansion, and Volusia County Sheriff's Office hiring prompted the County Manager, James T. Dinneen, to recommend no tax rollback. Also, a major goal for the council is to be debt-free by 2018.
"Given all of those actual expenditures for the community, I'm not suggesting that we raise the rate," says Dinneen. "What I promised was if the economy was good enough and depending on our expenditures, I could probably recommend something that would be a partial rollback. Remember last year we went from 6.3 to 6.1. I don't recommend that this year because of all that happened, including the hurricane."
The first public hearing on the 2017-2018 budget is at 6 PM on September 7. There, council members will vote to approve the 6.1 tax rate or introduce a lower tax rate if possible.
Photo courtesy of Congarashu and Shutterstock.com.
Copyright Southern Stone Communications 2017.
