By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

                Bronson Town Council members voted unanimously on Dec. 20 to spend $32,000 on a study that will determine how much property owners would be taxed if the town approves a special assessment to fund the fire department.

            The council won’t consider adopting the fire assessment until sometime next year after the study has been completed and public hearings are held to take input from residents.

            Nabors, Giblin, and Nickerson, a Tallahassee consulting firm, will conduct the study and most likely will return with a range of possible assessments the council could impose on property owners for fire services.

            The concept of a fire assessment is new to Bronson. Bronson has never had a fire assessment. Mayor Robert Partin asked Town Manager Susan Beaudet how the town arrived at the point where it was discussing a fire tax.

            “I have a question. Where did this start from?” Partin asked.

            “It started from the strategic planning committee,” Beaudet responded.

            Beaudet has worked as town manager for less than a year. One of the things she did early on was form a strategic planning committee to discuss what the town needed as far as equipment, roads, construction, and town services, including fire protection.

            “You sit here and you look at these things and you talk about this for months and months and months and not a word about where it came from,” Partin responded.

            “I want to say it was when we (the committee) started talking about funding for the fire department,” Beaudet said.

            State law required the council to hold a public hearing to discuss how the town would assess taxpayers for a non-ad valorem tax.  The hearing was held before the regular council meeting on Dec. 20, but the council meeting room was empty. There were no Bronson residents in attendance except a Spotlight reporter.

            Town Manager Susan Beaudet said she followed state requirements for notifying the public of the meeting. She published legal advertisements in a Chiefland newspaper for four consecutive weeks before the hearing to notify the public. Bronson no longer has its own newspaper. She said she also posted a notice of the hearing on the town’s website and posted a notice of the hearing on the back of the marquee in front of the Dogan Cobb Municipal Building.

            Still, members of the public were absent from the hearing.

            The dates and times of the public hearings next year have yet to be determined.

            Beaudet said the town was required by state law to authorize the fire assessment study in December to leave enough time to notify the county tax collector and property appraiser in January of the town’s intent to consider adopting a fire tax next year. If the assessment is approved in 2022, it would appear on property tax bills after Oct. 1. The assessment would be imposed only on property owners within the city limits.

            Property owners who live in dwellings that are exempt from property taxes would still have to pay the assessment if it is approved by the council.  Standard property tax exemptions don’t apply to special exceptions. However, the council could exempt extremely low-income people if it chose to do so.

            Those are issues that would have to be addressed in the study.

            Since there were no members of the public present for the public hearing, the council asked Interim Fire Chief Gail Foote if he had any questions about the assessment. Foote was appointed as interim fire chief to temporarily replace Chief Dennis Russell who was hospitalized with an undisclosed illness. He attended the meeting in Russell’s absence.

            Foote asked whether the council would reduce ad valorem property taxes on town property owners if it imposes the fire assessment tax. The town currently funds Bronson Fire Rescue out of property taxes. This year, the fire department received $81,000 from the town council.

            “One thing I was wondering is if you do the assessment, are you going to give people a break on their ad valorem taxes?” Foote said.

            Deputy Clerk Wendy Maragh was under the impression property taxes would be lowered if the fire assessment was imposed.

            Councilman Jason Hunt said the town council could adopt the rolled-back rate for property taxes. The rolled-back rate would generate the same amount of taxes as the previous year, resulting in a lower millage rate.

            Chiefland adopted a fire tax to fund its fire department but didn’t give property owners a reduction in property taxes to offset the cost of the fire assessment.

            Foote said the fire assessment would benefit the fire department.

            “It’s more than we get now,” he said.

            The town is building a new fire station on the north end of town along U.S. 27A but the project is being paid for by a state legislative appropriation, not local property taxes.

            Foote has legal authority to sign papers for the construction project while work is in progress and he can take any necessary action on behalf of the fire department in Russell’s absence.

            The one hang-up with the new fire station is whether the city will have to drill a new well to service the building’s fire suppression system. The city’s current water pressure at the site isn’t high enough to meet state requirements for operating a fire suppression sprinkler system in the building.

            Russell has tossed out the idea of drilling a 12-inch diameter well to supply water to the fire station, but the council hasn’t acted on his proposal. Fire station construction should be completed early next year but the building won’t be usable until the issue of water pressure is resolved.

————————-

Town of Bronson Public Hearing December 20, 2021; Posted December 24, 2021