Fed up with annual budget battles with Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, county commissioners are considering putting the nearly $1.2 billion-a-year agency in its own taxing district so its spending won’t be a drain on other county services.
The idea for the creation of what in government jargon is called a municipal service taxing unit, or MSTU, came as commissioners struggled to balance the county’s proposed $2.2 billion spending plan under the weight of Bradshaw’s constantly increasing budget.
The move would separate the sheriff’s budget from the rest of the county’s general fund, putting it under a microscope to force the sheriff to justify annual increases. It would sharply reduce the cost of the sheriff’s services for city residents, increasing it for residents of unincorporated areas.
Even though property values increased this year, the $80 million of additional taxes that is expected to be generated wouldn’t be enough to cover Bradshaw’s proposed 8.3% budget hike. He said he needs an additional $94 million during the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
It is the second year in a row Bradshaw’s proposed budget has eaten up all the taxes generated by rising property values.
“The sheriff’s budget is unsustainable,” Commissioner Maria Marino said at a June 9 budget workshop.
Every year the sheriff’s needs become more difficult to accommodate without deep cuts in other county programs, said Commissioner Gregg Weiss.
“I just see this fiscal cliff and we come closer and closer to falling off,” he said.
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A frustrated Commissioner Joel Flores noted that County Administrator Joe Abruzzo is suggesting saving $35 million by, in part, eliminating 35 mostly vacant county jobs and raising $10 million by charging people to park at county beachfront parks. Yet, he said, other constitutional officers, most notably the sheriff with by far the biggest budget, haven’t trimmed costs.
Something has to be done to free revenue for other needed programs, such as affordable housing, he said.
“At this point, I don’t know what else we can do,” Flores said of the proposed MSTU.
Sheriff says he won’t fight proposal
Commissioners asked Abruzzo to prepare an ordinance that would allow them to move most of the sheriff’s spending to the new entity in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, 2027. That would allow them to lower the tax rate to pay for workers to oversee county operations, including parks, roads, the courts, elections and building maintenance.
“It’s a big discussion we would have to have,” said Commissioner Marci Woodward. “I’m sure the sheriff would want to weigh in as well.”
In a statement, Bradshaw said he would not block the proposal. “It’s the county’s responsibility to fund the budget for law enforcement services,” he wrote. “It’s their decision which method they choose to accomplish this. I only oppose not getting properly funded.”
At the same time, he pledged to cut $20 million out of his request to help the commission out of what was originally projected as a $40 million budget shortfall. His concession is expected to be discussed Tuesday when the commission sets the preliminary tax rate.
Some of PBSO’s duties must be paid countywide
The transition to an MSTU won’t be easy. Only part of the sheriff’s budget would be moved into the special taxing district, said Sherry Brown, director of the county’s Office of Financial Management and Budget.
The millions Bradshaw spends annually to provide law enforcement to businesses and homeowners in the unincorporated parts of the county would be moved into the taxing district, she said. Only those who own land outside municipalities would pay what would become a separate property tax for police protection.
According to his budget, Bradshaw spends $752 million on “law enforcement.” It doesn’t detail what those costs include or how much is spent exclusively in the unincorporated area.
However, some of the sheriff’’s operations, such as the jails, courthouse security and the crime lab, serve all county residents. That means all county property owners would continue to pay for the $269 million Bradshaw plans to spend to operate the main jail and the one in Belle Glade and the millions he spends on courthouse security and the crime lab.
The costs of those countywide programs would remain in the county’s operating fund and all county landowners would pay for them in their annual tax bills, Brown said.
Who would pay
Residents of Palm Beach Gardens, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton and any other city with its own police force would pay for those universal services through the county tax but would get a lower county tax bill because they no longer would be paying for the sheriff’s patrols in unincorporated areas because they wouldn’t be part of the MSTU.
Those who live in the 12 cities, including Lake Worth Beach, Greenacres and Wellington, that have contracts with the sheriff’s office for law enforcement, would still pay for those contracts through their city tax bills. But they, too, would pay less for the sheriff’s patrols in unincorporated Palm Beach County because they wouldn’t be part of the MSTU.
Brown estimated that the countywide tax rate would drop by about $2 per $1,000 of taxable value once the switch takes place. Meanwhile, those who live in the unincorporated area would pay about $4 more per $1,000 for law enforcement.
For the owner of a home valued at $250,000 after a $50,000 homestead exemption, a $1 change in the tax rate adds $250 to their tax bill. So, the change would mean that the owner of that home would pay $500 less for county services and those in the unincorporated area would pay $1,000 more.
Residents of the unincorporated area would see that new amount on a separate line on their tax bills for the MSTU.
Tax bills for those residents have long featured lines reflecting an MSTU for fire-rescue and library services.
It started with Blaise Ingoglia
The proposal surfaced after state CFO Blaise Ingoglia repeatedly praised Bradshaw for holding the line on spending and blasted county commissioners as spendthrifts, who wasted $443 million last year alone.
Noting that Ingoglia has never explained how he concluded that the commission frittered away nearly a half billion dollars, Abruzzo in June confronted the head of the governor’s Department of Government Efficiency when he appeared in Boca Raton.
Calling Ingoglia’s claims “totally false,” Abruzzo shouted across the room that county spending is driven by the sheriff’s office and fire-rescue. When Ingoglia responded that Abruzzo was blaming police, Abruzzo fired back, asking, “So you want to defund the police?”
The move to the MSTU also comes as the commission, like all local government leaders in Florida, worry about the impact of a proposed constitutional amendment that would severely limit property tax increases. The Republican-backed measure will be on the November ballot.
If it works for fire-rescue it should work for PBSO
Former County Commissioner Karen Marcus praised the idea of paying for the sheriff’s office through a special taxing district. “I think it’s long overdue,” she said.
She said she also liked the idea of combining the sheriff’s office with the MSTU that for more than 40 years has been used to pay for Palm Beach County Fire Rescue, which serves the unincorporated area.
The MSTU will provide needed transparency to sheriff’s office spending, she said. “People can look at the MSTU and have a better understanding of the sheriff’s huge budget rather than have it mixed in with all the other county budgets,” she said. “This will make it very clear for the taxpayer.”
But, she said, it is doubtful the sheriff would have to worry about blowback, which makes raising the rate easier politically. “People love firefighters. People love law enforcement,” she said. “It will just be much more transparent.”
She said she wished the option had been available during the 28 years she served on the commission. Almost every year, the commission battled with the sheriff, whoever it was, and each year, often faced with a roomful of armed deputies, the commission capitulated.
“I didn’t even know it was a possibility,” she said of the MSTU.
Approach may conflict with Supreme Court ruling
Former County Administrator Bob Weisman, who served in the top job for 24 years before retiring in 2015, said an MSTU was discussed years ago among his staff but never presented to county commissioners.
“We did not think it was financially feasible or politically possible,” he said.
Back then, the sheriff, possibly Richard Wille, the county’s longest-serving sheriff until Bradshaw, strenuously objected to the idea, he said.
More importantly, Weisman said it was unclear how to distinguish what services the sheriff provided only to the unincorporated area and those that should be considered countywide.
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While it’s obvious that the operations of the jail, courthouse security and the crime lab benefit all county residents, road patrol is murky, he said.
In the 1980s, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, North Palm Beach and Boca Raton sued the county, claiming their residents were being taxed illegally to pay for sheriff’s road patrols.
The patrols in unincorporated parts of the county provided no benefit to municipal residents, who had their own police departments, they claimed. They argued that it was an unconstitutional form of double taxation.
The Florida Supreme Court disagreed. The patrols in unincorporated areas have spillover effects that reduce crime in adjacent municipalities. Further, municipal residents are protected by sheriff’s deputies when they drive through unincorporated areas, the justices unanimously agreed in the 1984 ruling.
Significantly, they pointed out, that the sheriff is elected countywide.
“The sheriff of a county in Florida is the sheriff for all the people of the county,” wrote Chief Justice Joseph Boyd. “The fact that municipalities may organize police forces to provide their residents with additional law enforcement services does not relieve municipal residents of the obligation of paying county taxes to finance the operation of the sheriff’s office.”
Weisman said that lawsuit, combined with other factors, convinced him that creating an MSTU for the sheriff’s office would be legally risky and logistically difficult, if not impossible.
Still, he acknowledged, the advantages are obvious. It frees up taxes collected countywide for other services.
“It also makes the sheriff more accountable to the taxpayers as to the appearance of his budget,” Weisman said.
Commission prepares to set tax rate
While the commission is moving forward with the proposal, it still has next year’s budget to hammer out.
On Tuesday, it will set a maximum tax rate.
Abruzzo pushed to lower the tax rate to $4.43 from $4.50 for every $1,000 of property value. The rollback rate, at which the county would raise the same amount through property taxes as the previous year, is $4.28
But, commissioners pushed back against Abruzzo’s proposal. They said they couldn’t imagine how they would find $40 million of additional cuts on top of the $35 million Abruzzo is proposing. They would have to slice an additional $10 million if they reject his plan to charge beachgoers to park at county parks.
Instead, Brown suggested keeping the tax rate the same as this year’s. If Bradshaw cuts $20 million out of his spending plan and the commission adopts this year’s tax rate, the county budget would balance, she said.
The owner of a home valued at $230,000 that increased in value by 3% and protected by the homestead exemption would pay about $14 more in taxes if the rate doesn’t change. If the rate were reduced to $4.43 they would pay about the same as last year.
The commission could lower the tax rate if they find additional ways to save money before the budget year begins Oct. 1, Brown said.
But, she warned, once the preliminary tax rate is set, it can’t be increased.
Budget hearings to allow the public to weigh in on the county’s spending plan are scheduled for Sept. 3 and 15.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
