05/31/2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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taxes and get 4% of the service. He also felt the County gets a good tax benefit from the barrier islands and thinks they deserve to have nice beaches. Commissioner Wheeler, to get a clearer understanding of electricity charges for City and County utility usage, presented a scenario on two lighthouses, one on City Street and one in the County. Mr. Maillet responded that if the actual electric portion were, say, for a City resident came to $200.00 then the County resident would be $220.00. The City resident would be $200.00 plus $20.00 of the City utility tax for a bill of $220.00 and the County resident would pay the $220.00 in Mr. Maillet electric, a zero percent. agreed with Commissioner Wheeler that the bills would be identical for the same amount of kilowatt-hours used. Commissioner Wheeler asked Administrator Baird to clarify whether the County funds its parks out of the General Fund or the MSTU. Administrator Baird explained. The County funds its recreation, and $1.318M of that is for lifeguards for its five (5) parks and that comes out of the MSTU. Some of the County’s park maintenance also comes out of the general fund. Mr. Baird commented that (1) the County never took a dime for North County Park from anything but County’s optional sales tax, which COVB got theirs and County got its share. None of it came from ad valorem taxes from City of Vero Beach. (2) That COVB was assuming that anyone who does not live in the City is a County resident and that was wrong, because they are tourists and from others cities as well. Commissioner Wheeler had further questions. He asked, “on the jail, this comes out of the general fund because it’s used by everybody; the law enforcement side of the sheriff’s budget comes out of the MSTU because the City is providing their own protection. If all the cities have their own parks, why wouldn’t our funding for our maintenance of parks come out of the MSTU instead of our general funds?” May 31, 2006 6