Property Taxes - Only 0.25¢ of every dollar goes to Broward County, inclusive of BSO funding

As we ramp up towards the new legislative session starting in January, there has been a steady drumbeat by the Governor to eliminate property taxes; and his allies in the legislature have already introduced bills in pre-session committee hearings to bring this to the full chamber when the session begins.

To the uneducated that don't understand what they are paying for or those who vaguely understand but ignorantly think property taxes are theft, there is a perception that the County and others are living large off of property taxes. This could not be further from the truth.

Above is a graphic, released by the County today, of exactly how much of each dollar of your property taxes goes to the County. It's a whole 25¢. Of that quarter-dollar, 55% then goes to the Broward Sheriffs Office as funding via the County. That leaves 11¢ per dollar actually paying for:

• Local Health office (Imagine the Pandemic without those selfless people)
• Stormwater systems and/or maintenance of flood control swales, canals, locks, and holding basins.
• Permitting & inspection of new construction or renovations
• Recording of legal documents
• Medical Examiners office (morgue, autopsy, etc.)
• Trash, recycling, maintenance of local dumps
• Maintenance, repair, and development of local parks
• All public transit (buses, trains, trolleys, etc.)
• Local meal delivery and transport for those on fixed income or handicapped
• Disaster relief (including rescuing people trapped in their homes, coordinated hurricane responses with other counties, operation of storm shelters, etc.)
• Homeless and abused women & family shelters
• Maintenance and operation of roads, highways, swales, and traffic light systems.
• Operation of Port Everglades and FLL
• All libraries
• Local courts
• All local animal shelters
• All local fire services (BSO doesn't fund them)

The rest, as you can see, goes to support the local school board, fund your local cities, funding for Broward Health and Memorial hospitals (primarily for the ER and indigent populations as required by federal law), and providing you safe drinking water and sanitary sewers (you seriously thought your water/sanitary bill alone could fund something so big?).

Yes, your property taxes go to helping others as well as funding the things you personally use. That's called living in a society. If your not interested in living in a society, there are still some property plats in Idaho or Montana that are remote with no such services. Good luck with that.

If your not going to relocate to remote Idaho or Montana, perhaps realize that instead of income taxes you pay property taxes, and it often comes out to much less than if you paid both as in most other states. If you're really committed to the bit about property taxes coming down, help your neighbors by selling your house below market rate to bring down the comps of the area, thus lowering property taxes. Oh, not willing to do that?