More than 116,000 Miami-Dade property owners got notices recently that show 
increases in their special taxing district assessments for the first time in at least four years — some as much as 22 percent.
These hikes come because, in part, they’ve not been paying their fair share since at least 2011.
But somebody has. Because their street lights didn’t suddenly go dark and the security guards didn’t stop coming to work.
And at least one commissioner has asked for an independent investigation and basically suggested that the special taxing districts are a cottage industry providing the county administration with injections of cash.
Miami-Dade employees have made what they call a “rate adjustment” to the taxes due from 234 of the 1068 special taxing districts countywide. These are neighborhoods where property owners have collectively voted to tax themselves and additional X amount for lighting, security or capital improvements (i.e. walls or roadwork or equipment on nearby parks). They costs for these special district services has increased but, apparently, the taxes paid for them have not, resulting in the adjustments.
Read related story: Taxes up for 116,000+ taxing district properties
But if each of these districts has an agreement or “compact” with the county so that the money put in for their particular lighting does not go to pay for someone else’s security, why does it appear that that is exactly what happened?
County employees at a town hall meeting at the West Dade Regional Library last week pretty much admitted to it while at the same time denying that any funds were illegally co-mingled.
Aneisha Daniels, an assistant director of administration, explained that there is a
“900 fund” where the money from taxing districts is “pooled” together. The total operating fund, she said, was somewhere around $33 million.
That’s total. For all the taxing districts combined.
Tony Cotarelo, deputy director of Public Works, and Michael Ruiz, assistant director of performance excellence (whatever that is) for Parks and Recreation tried to explain it as a difference between a balance sheet, which can be in the negative, and an account balance, which can be in the positive.
Say what?
“It’s an accounting question,” Ruiz did his best to explain. “You can have a cash deficit on one hand and enough pooled cash on the other.”
Como?
“If all the invoices came in at the same time,” said Cotarelo, “we’d have a problem.”
Well, me thinks you have a problem now. Because if some districts were operating at a deficit that probably means that other districts in that pool you are talking about are overpaying for their lighting or security or whatever. More than 800 taxing districts are not seeing increases — at least not yet. Does that mean they’ve been carrying the rest?
And isn’t that illegal?
People in Kendall are going to be angry if they find out they’ve been subsidizing
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