- May 17, 2024
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Property owners in Flagler County may see an increase in their tax bills this year even though the county's tax rate is decreasing slightly.
The Flagler County Commission voted 5-0 at a Sept. 18 meeting to approve the county's $287,038,539 fiscal year 2023-2024 budget and set the property tax rate at $8.3343 per $1,000 in taxable value. That's a slight decrease — 0.0119 mills — from the current rate of $8.34 per $1,000. But rising property values mean that property owners will pay a higher dollar amount, and the lowered rate will actually bring in about 14% more tax revenue for the county.
"This increase is necessary to fund the operations, obligations and mission of the county and our constitutional officers during the 20/24 fiscal year," Flagler County Financial Services Director John Broker said at the meeting.
Homeowners who are homesteaded will not bear the full brunt of the tax hike because Florida's Save Our Homes law caps annual increases in a homesteaded home's assessed value at no more than 3%.
The vote at the Sept. 18 meeting was the commission's second and final vote on the 2023-2024 millage rate and budget. This year will be the third in a row that the commission has reduced the property tax rate or held it steady.
Most of the county's property tax rate will be operating millage. The operating millage rate will be 8.0547 mills, or 8.0547 per $1,000 in taxable value. That rate is 8.46% higher than the "rollback rate" — the rate that would generate the same dollar amount of revenue for the county as the current rate has generated. The rollback operating millage rate would have been 7.4265 mills, or $7.4265 per $1,000 in taxable property value.
Of the operating millage, 7.9297 mills will go to the county's General Fund, while 0.1250 mills will go to the county's Environmentally Sensitive Lands Fund. The remainder of the 8.3343 overall millage rate would be debt service millage, at 0.2796 mills.
