Taxpayers are invited to gauge county service

Residents can sound off at a meeting in Lutz and digest food for thought on the Internet.

By Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 23, 2000

LUTZ -- Hillsborough County leads the state's largest counties in the acres of parks and environmentally protected areas per population. But it has the fewest code inspectors.

Hillsborough has the highest percentage of eligible clients receiving indigent medical care, but the slowest response time for paramedic services.

It leads the biggest judicial circuits in autopsies per population and easily tops other counties in fire inspections per inspector.

Are you satisfied?

Such is the scope of a meeting scheduled Wednesday night in Lutz. County officials want to hear how taxpayers feel about the levels of service.

They have posted some provocative food for thought on the Internet, at http://www.hillsboroughcounty.ort/mbd/pub.html. That Web site leads to a 21-page examination of services provided by 16 county departments, compared with six of Florida's other largest counties.

Aside from the Web, that Service Level Standards Report also is available at county libraries and at the county's department of management of budget. Also available is a two-page public response form that residents will be asked to complete.

Interested?

The meeting on county services will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Lutz Branch Library, Lutz-Lake Fern Road at U.S. 41. For information, call 272-5860.

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