Who doesn’t love a tax break?
Jay Morris doesn’t – not when it comes on the heels of a decade of cuts in an already low-tax state that’s continually outgrowing its britches. The St. Johns County Commissioner had issued dire warnings about roads, parks and libraries if Amendment 1 passed, which it was widely expected to.
But the amendment failed in Tuesday’s midterm elections, after a strong campaign against it by numerous county associations.
“It’s fantastic,” said Morris, reached later by phone. “It would have brought major financial devastation to the county.”
Amendment 1 was placed on the ballot by the state legislature in what some called an anti-tax push to curry political favor with voters. It would’ve cut property taxes, which is the primary funding source for local government, while leaving state revenues untouched.
State-wide the tax cut would’ve taken $763 million out of local budgets, according to the Florida Association of Counties. In St. Johns County, it would have cut $10.5 million, wiping out last year’s revenue increase of $8.5 million – and then some.
Would that have caused cuts to the county budget?
“We’ve already cut so much there isn’t anything left to cut,” said Morris. He said during the recession of ’08 and ’09, the county “cut everything.” They even stopped capital improvements.
“You can do that for a while, but eventually it’s going to catch up.”
Today, the county is $320 million behind on deferred maintenance. Roads and bridges “are way underfunded,” he said.
That’s not all. In the eight years Morris has served as commissioner, the county has not built a new library, a new fire station or new parks. He said he and the other commissioners get four or five phone calls per week from parents who’re frustrated because their child’s ball team can’t get any play time due to lack of ball parks.
In 2015, Morris wanted a one-cent sales tax put on the ballot – half for the county commission and half for the school board. The boards themselves cannot raise taxes, they can only take the issue before voters. The school board voted to place the tax on the ballot and citizens approved it by a 60% vote. But three out of the five Board of County Commission members declined taking its half-cent to the voters.
“If we’d approved that half-cent back in 2015, we’d have $57 or $58 million in the bank today,” said Morris, whose background is in finance. He said 35% to 40% of that would’ve been paid by tourists. “That’s what I was trying to do for St. Johns County.”
Last month, Morris had strong words over a development that was declined in the October county commission meeting. The developer had proposed $37 million in infrastructure improvements as part of a mixed use subdivision called “King’s Grant.” He cast the sole vote for the development.
“We can’t even come up with $3700 and we haven’t for eight years,” he said, of the county’s constrained finances. “It’s going to get worse until this commission comes up with a funding source.”
He said if residents don’t want to rely on developers, then they either need to support sales or property taxes. The state has no income or estate tax and has one of the lowest tax burdens in the country, according to the Tax Policy Foundation.
“We can’t be the fastest growing county in the country and 14th in the nation and not fund services.” St. Johns County gets 15,000 new residents per year. The state itself gets around 400,000 new residents and 100 million tourists per year.
“At some point, you’ve got to fund services,” he said.
Morris’ commission ends November 20, 2018. He has elected not to run for the board again.
“It will be interesting to see what the new person does,” he said.
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