Answering Your Frequently Asked Questions
We pay a gas tax, why isn’t that paving our roads? Citrus County’s gas tax is 100% used on roads, but is a small fraction of what is needed to keep up with our roughly 1,900 miles (about the distance from here to Denver). State SCOP and general fund millage makes up the rest of the funding.
Why is our gas more expensive? Our gas tax is virtually the same as surrounding counties, but the total price per gallon is higher because delivery costs more here.
You raised taxes in fiscal year 2023/2024. Why? We raised the millage from 8.2 to 8.9 mills, an 8% increase. This was a reset to the same as 2015, the year that began an era of putting rollback over keeping up with maintenance.
Had the millage been left where it was in 2015 throughout the budgets of 2016-2023, an additional $65 million could have been applied to road resurfacing, prior to the enormous inflationary run up of paving costs.
By my estimation, our current backlog of 800 miles of horrible roads rated 7 (needs repaving) to 10 (needs rebuilding) would not exist had rollback not been the annual tradition.
How is raising taxes conservative? Because in this unique case, it saves you money! Prior boards making the popular decision to continue rolling back taxes for a great many years mortgaged our future by deferring road maintenance. Having to rebuild roads that can’t be saved because they are so deteriorated costs FOUR TIMES more than simply repaving on time. That’s not fiscally conservative nor wise.
Furthermore, compare the average homesteaded homeowner paying $90 more per year in taxes (FY24 vs FY23) vs that same homeowner incurring $425 annually in additional vehicle maintenance due to poor road conditions. The fiscally conservative path is clear: a bit more taxes saves a ton of money and aggravation with your vehicle.
Put it this way: when it comes time for a new roof on your house, you don’t want to pay for that, do you? It’s highly expensive and not something you can really enjoy. But your entire house will be at risk of expensive damage and repairs if you ignore the need. Same with roads. Prior boards didn’t fund roads, and this current board had the backbone to say “enough is enough”.
According to medical professionals, quality roads also keeps you safer – beyond being less safe to drive on, poor roads slow ambulances down, and if you are in critical condition, every minute counts!
You say roads are fully funded, why don’t I see more paving done? Short answer: we didn’t start seeing the 2024 road budget make actual road progress until July 2024, with only three months left in the fiscal year. While I was NOT happy with the delay, I am pleased it’s now underway, and with greater efficiency in the process (the cause of the delay). We have elicited a promise from staff and contractors that we will catch up by paving that much more per month, so that the entire 2024 and 2025 paving budgets are laid on our roads for us to enjoy by the end of fiscal 2025. This outstanding video explains it well.
So when will my road be done? Here’s where patience is required, unfortunately. “Fully funding” road resurfacing means a 20-25 year cycle, the timing that is most cost-efficient. If it’s 20 years, that means 1 in 20 (5%) of our roads will be done each year. If it’s 25 years, that means 1 in 25 (4%) of our roads will be done each year.
The good news is that two years of budget will be deployed in 15 months’ time, so somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10% of our roads will be freshly paved by September 2025. (For the record, we are shooting for 20 year cycle, but with so many roads needing rebuilding, which costs 4x more per mile, this may or may not be a target we hit.)
For many years Citrus County was paving at a 80-100 year cycle, or roughly 1% to 1.25% of roads annually. This is why so many roads are in shameful shape, and it was certainly an unsustainable trajectory.
Will the millage have to stay where it is? As long as property values continue to go up, my taxes will go up! There are many benefits to significantly lowering the ad valorem millage rate in favor of MSBUs, most notably getting more out of every tax dollar, and greater transparency and perceived value. This is a discussion that needs to be had.
Where are all the growth dollars going? For now, more residents and businesses mean more services provided, along with all the infrastructure that goes with it. What that means in the future depends on the commercial versus residential mix – we are pushing hard for higher-wage employers to move to Citrus, which will keep our taxes in check, improve our medical services availability, and allow for our kids and grandkids to stay here and build careers.
PROACTIVE PLANNING KEEPS PERFORMANCE HIGH AND TAXES LOW
January 2023 marked a whole new day in Citrus County, with:
- A forward-thinking board; it takes a minimum of 3 of the 5 members to be wired that way for that to be true, and the board makeup changes as often as every other year
- A new county administrator who began rebuilding the culture of Citrus County employee teams to be a high-performance, proactive, organization that is continually improving processes for cost-efficiency
- The launch of our first-ever Strategic Plan; Citrus County was just one of three counties in the United States to be nationally recognized for their strategic plan
- Citizen-led
- Measured progress, with public facing dashboard
We still have a long way to go to catch up and then get truly ahead in our planning and execution, but we have made huge strides with a light tax load and a culture of frugality. This isn’t just my opinion, it’s born out by facts and objective external opinions.
FY23/24 vs FY07/08:
- Property valuations ~equal (after huge dip from then to now)
- Population 17% greater now
- Employees 10% fewer now
Citrus County is ranked very positively within the state of Florida for a low tax burden, as seen in Florida Tax Watch.
Because of our low taxes – including this 2024 fiscal year – we were just named the 5th best place to retire in Florida, for the second. year in a row.