NORTH PORT – For months now City of North Port officials have been proposing a property tax increase for residents that would increase the tax rate to 4.2% mills from the current 3.4%.
“Now we’re at a place where we gotta make some hard decision,” said City of North Port Mayor Christopher Hanks.
City commissioners pass the $172 million budget for the 2019-2020 fiscal year. With a vote of 3-2 in favor of increasing taxes, residents can expect to be paying more but not as much as first proposed.
“There’s a lot of things going on from the federal level, to the state level, to the county level, to the city level and all this stuff affects us.” said Mayor Hanks. “Our taxes in this city are not mutually exclusive everything affects everything.”
The property tax rate will now be raised to 3.8% something Vice Mayor Debbie McDowell wanted to avoid.
“I do not believe that this is a prudent way to raise the taxes to this level,” said McDowell. “For the city it’s going to have a ripple effect citywide. It’s going to affect our business, it’s going to affect our economic growth, it’s going to affect our development, it’s going to affect every citizen’s pocketbook. I voted against it.”
With the increase, residents will now pay around $4.28 per $1,000 of taxable value. North Port resident Victor Dobrin is disappointed at the outcome but is ready for next year’s budget proposal to continue fighting for his fellow neighbors.
“They raided our reserve funds. They are totally – they have lack of competence, they should not sit there and let other people step in their seats. It was very clear they didn’t understand the budget and that upsets me,” said Dobrin.
Residents can expect to see the tax increase beginning October 1, 2019.