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Stance on taxes doesn't make them turncoats

By DIANE STEINLE
Published June 24, 2007

A half-dozen of Pinellas County's state legislators cut their teeth in politics while sitting on city councils and city commissions. They juggled city budgets, listened to groups beg for funding, got blasted for spending too much - or too little.

But as state legislators, they have just dropped an anvil on city governments. When the Legislature passed its tax reform package June 14, it deposited the full burden of implementing statewide tax reform on the backs of local governments.

City and county governments must cut their budgets up to 9 percent and they also face spending caps in future years. Officials are scrambling to cut millions right now.

And that is just the first round. On Jan. 29, Florida voters will decide whether to implement the second round: a super-homestead exemption that could reduce even more substantially the revenue streams of local governments.

So do these city-officials-turned-legislators feel guilty about slapping cities and counties with this burden, stomping on their home rule authority, and implying that they are bloated from excessive spending (as if the state government is not)?

Not much.

State Rep. Janet C. Long, a Democrat who sat on the Seminole City Council for four years before she was elected to the Legislature, says this:

"I sat in that chair and time and time again, the city staff would come in with amendments to the budget and I'd ask, 'How are we going to pay for this? It wasn't budgeted.' And they'd say, 'Unanticipated revenue.' One time I asked them, 'What was the unanticipated revenue last year?' And the answer was $2-million and something. There are ways government can be more efficient - no question about it."

Republican Rep. Tom Anderson acknowledged that he was worried for local governments before the Legislature's three-day special session, when legislative leaders were talking about perhaps forcing cities and counties to roll back their tax rates to 2001 or 2003 levels. That would have been devastating, but the reform package that eventually passed was not so draconian, he said.

"I don't think the burden is going to be too heavy. There are opportunities for cutting expenses in both cities and counties, " he said.

Anderson, former mayor of Dunedin, and his city government colleagues used some of those opportunities in past years to keep taxes low. Dunedin eliminated its police department, put fewer workers on sanitation trucks and contracted out the job of mowing city properties, for example.

However, several other Pinellas legislators sat on city boards that grew their budgets and took advantage of the dollars that flowed in from ever-increasing property values. Rep. Peter Nehr, previously a Tarpon Springs city commissioner, said some have called him a hypocrite.

"I used the money that was presented to me for expanding programs" while a city commissioner, he acknowledged. But if he were still a commissioner, he said, "I would hear the taxpayers' lament and would say I understand, and I would reduce spending."

Several Pinellas delegates explained that though they may have approved city programs that now will be cut, they felt no guilt about mandating local government tax cuts for two reasons: 1. As legislators, they have a fiduciary responsibility to all Floridians, and 2. Local governments did not take seriously enough the pleas of residents for tax cuts.

Rep. Ed Hooper, a Clearwater Republican and former city commissioner, said he watched residents beg for relief at local government budget hearings.

"We are becoming a state where families can't live, " said Long of Seminole. "Taxes are up, insurance is up, gas prices are up. We live in very trying times. And for sure, government should not spend more than the people can afford to pay."

So I asked Long, if she were still on the Seminole City Council, where would she start cutting? She'd eliminate travel and educational programs, and start cutting the "huge dollars" the city invests in its recreation center. Anderson, if he were still serving in Dunedin, would look at cutting reserve funds and contracting out more services. Hooper, if still on Clearwater's governing board, would re-evaluate the parks and libraries and consider cutting garbage pickup to once a week.

"And maybe the time has come for all cities to say, 'How many years should a nonprofit get government funding before they stand on their own?' " Hooper said. Also, "Maybe this will initiate serious discussion of a countywide fire department."

"There is going to be change, " said Rep. Rick Kriseman, a St. Petersburg Democrat and former City Council member. "I think people underestimated what they are going to have to give up. But that's what they said they wanted."

Kriseman said the Legislature owed the public a full philosophical exploration of how to best reform taxation in Florida - a discussion it did not deliver in three rushed days.

Every delegate I spoke with reported that their mail shows people are unhappy with the result. They expect to head back to Tallahassee for the next regular session with tax reform still at the top of their list.

Diane Steinle is editor of editorials for North Pinellas editions of the Times.

[Last modified June 24, 2007, 00:11:03]