Taxation without representation

I forgot to document my anger when I was doing my normal Sunday bill paying session over the weekend.  I had received my property tax bills for the two vacant lots I own at about a 90% loss compared to what I paid for them in 2003.   Every year I get reminded of the worst investment of my life when I pay the property taxes, luckily the amount is small, around $100 each.  Well when I looked at this years bills I did a double take, the total for the two lots was over $500??!!  WTF.

So I start doing some digging and look over the bill details.  There is a new $162 assessment on each bill for the Lehigh Acres fire district.  I did some searching and discovered that in August the Lehigh Acres commissioners passed this “simplified” (their term) fire assessment as compared to a normal millage rate.  This was pitched as a good thing for residents as people that live there could potentially pay less for their fire assessment while the majority of lot owners in Lehigh Acres, the ones that are vacant, pay much, much more.  This really pissed me off.

I did some digging and found the email addresses for the fire district and commissioners.  I sent them all the following email.

I was shocked when I realized my 2020 property tax bill for 2 vacant lots has increased over 500% from last year, courtesy of the new one size fits all assessment levied by your fire district. While I understand the need to adequately fund the fire services, this is a blatant and honestly disgusting money grab that I was not notified about prior to it being voted upon. For the district to do this in the middle of the world struggling to make ends meet due to the pandemic makes it even more egregious in my opinion. To pay $250 in property taxes on a lot that is valued at $4000 is insane. I would appreciate it if you could direct me to where these assessments can be disputed formally. I am really disappointed in the morality on display here. Anyone involved in this decision should be ashamed of themselves. There could have been a reasonable middle ground solution instead of shoving the responsibility mostly on top of the backs of vacant lot owners.

One person from the fire district did respond, basically directing me to a web page that talks about how great the “simplified” rate is, if you happen to live there.  The idea that the fire district was able to get away with this really irritates me.  If they went with a traditional millage rate set up my taxes would have went up $25 or so, ok that would be fine.  However they opted to choose a rate almost six times higher than that.  There are roughly 130,000 lots in Lehigh Acres, only about a third of them have a house on them.  They basically just wrote themselves a check for over 14 million dollars with this new “simplified” plan.

Since I don’t live in Lehigh Acres I have no ability to vote  on it.  Hell even the normal public referendums that would surround this sort of decision were dramatically scaled back due to Covid, the only “discussion” about it was supposedly via email.  Of course the extra $300 is not going to break me but the intent and methodology used in this money grab really rubs me the wrong way.  I just wish the lot prices in Lehigh Acres would be following the upward curve of other real estate in SW Florida, I would sell mine in a second if I could.