The Political Whore

Mayor Pam spoke the truth yesterday when she told a group of Kiwianians in New Tampa that she can build plenty of government facilities — but likely can’t afford to hire staff for them. It’s just an illustration of Florida’s complex and ill-designed tax revenue system that gives priority to state government at the expense of where it is really needed: at the local level.

The Times quoted Mayor Pam telling the biz group that she’s got plenty of sales tax dollars, which can only be used at the local level for capital construction projects, and not enough property taxes, which are the primary source of salaries for local government employees such as firefighters and police officers:

“That’s the dilemma I think that local governments have,” Iorio told the New Tampa group. “If we build it, can they staff it?”

No matter which end of the political spectrum you sit on — either shrink government or expand it to cover necessary social services — there is no disputing that Florida’s tax system is incomprehensible and unfair. Sales taxes fuel state government, but they are vulnerable to economic downturns and are not applied to many services that professionals supply. Property taxes unfairly penalize people who see their land appreciate in value but have no interest in selling it to realize that profit, and they are the local governments’ major source of operating revenue. Some sales taxes can be only used for construction. Some property taxes can’t be used outside of certain geographical areas, to benefit the rest of a city. You see the problem. It’s dizzying.

What’s worse than this patchwork quilt of taxes that are misaligned to the needs of Florida’s cities and counties is the way the state Legislature is trying to force local government to “lose weight” by starving them of cash in the current property tax reform effort. As I wrote about last week, studies show that such efforts don’t result in a more efficient local government, since many of the rising costs they face (oil, insurance, health care, etc.) are out of their control; instead, the enforced spending diet results in services being cut, not efficiencies or innovation. States that drastically cut taxes hurt their services so much that they lag behind the rest of the nation for years to come.
And for the most part, that means cutting services aimed at the poor, the arts and our quality of life.

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