Media Release
Citizens for a Better Nassau
April 27, 2016 8:52 p.m.
The turnout for our first public meeting was truly overwhelming! We cannot thank our attendees enough for making it to the meeting and for being interested in important county finance issues that affect each and every one of us.
Our featured guests – Shanea Jones, with the Nassau County Office of Management & Budget (OMB), and Brian Martin, with Robert Charles Lesser & Co. – provided us with in-depth and thought-provoking information that when put together, shows that Nassau County simply cannot continue as is and needs to look toward broadening and diversifying its tax base.
Ever since the economic downturn, the county commission has tried to get the county
back on its feet financially playing catch up until values and taxes reach their prior level. The county commission’s strategy, designed to soften the blow on existing taxpayers, has focused on reducing expenses, including the elimination of more than 67 positions and resisting millage increases or a gas tax, to make up the shortfall in tax receipts. They’ve also worked to better position the county to attract private capital investment in non-residential land uses and grow high-wage jobs. However, given the depth and length of the downturn, the county commission has had to severely cut into reserves and the one-cent sales tax fund to balance its budgets and raise the millage rate by one mill in 2014, which the county had held off on doing for six years.
It is vital that we mention the strategy that the county has taken – eliminating county positions and reducing expenses – because they have already done away with the low-hanging fruit, as dozens of positions have been eliminated, services are being cut, maintenance and capital projects are being further deferred and roads are not able to be paved.
Unfortunately, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, there are a few seated
elected officials and at least one candidate running for a county elected office who
continue to suggest the county is being wasteful and deeper cuts can be made without
sacrificing service levels. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We challenge
those misleading the community to specifically come clean with what they suggest the
county cut. Nassau County’s population continues to grow and providing services to
additional residents and tourists isn’t cheap.
To be clear, these are the same people who want to sell you a false narrative on how broadening and diversifying the tax base means increasing residential property taxes. Again, this couldn’t be further from the truth, as broadening and diversifying Nassau County’s tax base with industrial, office and commercial development, only means that residential property taxes stay low and we maintain a high quality of life.
Misinforming the public about the county’s financial condition for their own personal agendas is doing the county and all of its residents a disservice. And, while they continue to grasp at straws and mislead the public about the county’s financial condition, Nassau County is going head first into a fiscal crisis.
One thing that really struck home for the both of us was at the public meeting when we mentioned that “if the county does not seriously start looking for ways to broaden and diversify its tax base, they might have to resort to raising residential property taxes, and no one wants that.” Everyone in that room nodded their head in agreement, including us; however, this could become reality if we don’t take action now. We need real and tangible solutions. We need to reduce the county’s dependence on residential property taxes by growing the number of non-residential taxpayers.
Nassau County has A-rated public schools, a high quality of life, is a prime location as the eastern gateway to Florida and has unique infrastructure advantages. We can compete for the highly coveted private capital investments and high-wage jobs that virtually ever other county and state want in order to grow smarter and create a more prosperous future for their citizens. And, we must.
This effort is not for us. It is for everyone who was in that room during our first public meeting and it is for everyone in the community. It is for those who don’t want to see the quality of our A-rated schools decline. It is for those who want to stop being just a bedroom-community for Jacksonville. It is for those who don’t want to see their residential property taxes increase and their property values decrease. And, it is for those who ultimately do not want to see our governing decisions being dictated by the state
Retired Nassau County Commissioner Jimmy L. Higginbotham and Retired Businessman Robert W. Spaeth are co-chairs of ‘Citizens for a Better Nassau County.’ For more information, please visit CitizensforaBetterNassau.com.
Careful, this sounds like the beginning of a soft sell for major manufacturers that are large users of energy that produce large amounts of waste products and pollution. The public is becoming increasingly aware of the interactions and conflicts between industry and the environment so keep your eyes open.
For industry, the bottom line is profits. Business responses to environmental influences fall within a wide spectrum of actions and inactions and need to be paid attention to when opening the doors to our community for industry.
Re: “if the county does not seriously start looking for ways to broaden and diversify its tax base, they might have to resort to raising residential property taxes, and no one wants that” — also no one wants our communities further impacted by pollution; so any real and tangible solutions need to take that into consideration also.