3/24/1998 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Fr- 6 do �, I U 4 F P,I,-�E 7,,,�,j -7 had requested that he use the 1¢ sales tax funds as the fees collected are turned back to County Government and are not restricted as to their use, while sales tax funds are restricted to capital expenditures. At the last meeting, Tax Collector Zimmermann had asked if anyone had any problem with this method of accomplishing the renovations and there was no response. Mr. Zimmermann continued that he is elected by the citizens as an agent of state government, maintaining an agency relationship with the Florida Department of Revenue (DOR) in issuing vessel and vehicle titles with oversight responsibility for the collection of taxes. As a constitutional officer, the Tax Collector does not report to the County Commission but reports directly to the citizens of the County. The Tax Collector has maintained 2 branch offices in Sebastian and Ryanwood which are organized so that each employee is available to handle either vehicles and vessels, occupational licenses, or taxes and hunting and fishing licenses. He anticipates being able to organize his main office in a similar fashion once his office space is adequate to the task. His office also collects paving assessments for the County and, at the Board's request, will eventually collect the tourist development taxes. Tax Collector Zimmermann then introduced two of his employees to give the results of an informal survey conducted by the Tax Collector's Office regarding the number of people coming into the offices, what they were there for, and whether or not they needed a referral to another department. Debbie Gee, Manager of Taxes and Occupational, Hunting and Fishing Licenses, explained they had performed a very unscientific survey, simply counting the people that came in, with couples being counted as 1 person. 94 people came into their department yesterday and they referred 10 of those people to other departments. 6 of the 10 were referred to Zoning to the Planner of the Day to apply for occupational licenses for doing business from home. The application is made to the Zoning Department and the Tax Collector's Office issues the license. It would be very simple to have a telephone available to call the Planner of the Day, who could then FAX these approvals to the new location. There were 2 referrals to the Building Department regarding issuance of occupational licenses to be a contractor and 2 referrals to the Property Appraiser's Office; 1 due to a misspelling of a name and 1 due to an address change. Stephanie Pooley, Manager of Vehicle and Vessel Services, noted they had 185 people in their office yesterday and completed 289 transactions, including mail transactions. They had 1 referral to the Property Appraiser's Office dealing with a refund from the State of Florida on a "RP" (mobile home real property) decal. MARCH 24, 1998 -20-