- February 8, 2025
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The Port Orange City Council set a maximum operating millage rate of 4.5673 for 2018, during the Tuesday, July 25 city council workshop.
A earlier motion had been made to keep the millage rate at 4.4542, the same as last year. However, after the motion was seconded, there was a 2-2 split vote. Councilman Chase Tramont and Vice Mayor Bob Ford voted to retain the same millage rate while Mayor Don Burnette and Councilman Drew Bastian voted against.
"We do have a major hit coming next year and my goal...right now is to protect us from next year," Tramont said. "I don't want to get us in a situation like last year’s budget did putting us in a position that we're in right now."
Burnette made the final motion to set the maximum millage rate at 4.5673. This ended in a 3-1 vote, with Bastian voting no.
Bastian explained Port Orange sits below the median debt and operating millage rate for all the municipalities. The average rate comes in at 6.9229.
“I'm not willing to reduce services or go back to where we were six or seven ago when we had a much higher millage rate,” Bastian said. “We’re too good of a city to go backwards and to reduce things.”
A millage rate of 4.4542, an increase of about 15 % from last year, had originally been proposed. The millage rate, with 1 mill equaling $1, is the amount per $1,000 used to calculate taxes on property and plays a role in determining property tax payments each year. A property appraisal determined that the value of property in Port Orange grew from the previous year, according to city officials.
"Changes like this, in the end, have dramatic impacts," Ford said, adding, "if I look at the patterns of taxes that are beginning to emerge in this county, we are now, I think, one of the highest taxed counties in terms of property taxes."
Now that the millage rate has been set it cannot go up. It can, however, either stay the same or go down.
When a tax notice is sent out, the Florida State Department of Revenue calculates a roll-back rate, which is the rate at which the government would collect the same amount of money as the prior year. Tax increases are directly related to that rate.
Additional public hearings will need to be held before the council can officially vote on a set millage rate in September.
