A Dichotomy of a Day: Rays get $300 MILLION from Pinellas County As Property Owners Get a Tax Increase

Yesterday was a day of dichotomies in Pinellas County.

Yesterday morning, St. Petersburg, Pinellas County and the Rays held a joint news announcement to announce they had struck a deal struck for a new Rays stadium and redevelopment surrounding it. 

Give Our Money Back! Hillsborough County Opposes Taxpayer Refund AGAIN as AFT's $570 MILLION Refund Fiasco Continues

The Hillsborough County $570 Million All for Transportation (AFT) refund legal fiasco continues. 

Over 2.5 years ago, the AFT transit tax was ruled illegal and thrown out in its entirety. The AFT transit tax refund remedy has not yet been resolved. 

PSTA HeadsTowards Fiscal Cliff Again As Big Pay Raises Funded with 1-time COVID Money & Escalating Operating Expenses Comes Home to Roost

Pinellas County Transit agency PSTA is heading towards insolvency. They used one-time COVID dollars to hand out large raises now baked into PSTA's budget. PSTA depleted almost $100M of COVID dollars over the last few years.

PSTA knew they were heading towards a fiscal cliff last year. The then governing PSTA board approved huge pay raises, implemented "free to the rider" SunRunner rides and did nothing to alleviate PSTA's fiscal hemorrhaging. 

Hillsborough County Blows Through All Its Skyrocketing Growth Revenues, Increases County Bureaucracy by 61%

Guest post by Dr. Jim Davison 

Hillsborough County citizens are well acquainted with this time of year as being the start of hurricane season in Florida. It starts every year on June the 1st. We are given estimates of how many and how intense the storms will be. We are urged to get our homes ready and to prepare in case one of these natural disasters hits the area. All good advice.

Beginning about one month before hurricane season there is another season that starts every year. One that can be costly and deadly to taxpayers and it is man-made. 

It is the “Budget Season” for local municipalities and the County. 

The "Budget Season" is a closely choreographed period-of-time. Like clockwork, the Hillsborough County Administrator Bonnie Wise kicked off the Fiscal Year 2024 season at a BOCC workshop on May 10, 2023. No public comment was allowed.

Property Tax Revenues Increase 15.3% But Hillsborough County Refuses to Prioritize Funding Roads....Again

Hillsborough County's budget is an abomination and taxpayers in Hillsborough County should be revolting. 

For the last 15 years, Hillsborough County has refused to properly prioritize road funding, a primary responsibility of local government. Roads are Hillsborough County's largest asset but the County continues to neglect to appropriately maintaining and improving them. 

That must change with the FY24 budget. Taxpayers must demand property tax revenues be used to fund roads and transportation.

Give Hillsborough County a $570M Sales Tax Holiday, Do Not Reward Any Wrong-doers

It's way beyond time for Hillsborough County taxpayers to get back the $570M of illegal All for Transportation (AFT) tax dollars unlawfully taken from them. It's been over two years since the Florida Supreme Court ruled that AFT was unlawful in February 2021.  

Finally, House Bill 7063 (starting at line 893) provides a final remedy to the big legal mess AFT created. HB7063 includes a provision for a sales tax holiday to be implemented when a final adjudication has been made that a local sales tax referendum is ruled unlawful and illegal. 

In 2024 Defeating Biden and Preserving Our Republic Flows Thru PA, WI, MI, GA and AZ

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin's words are as relevant or perhaps more so today as they were in 1787.  

When Governor DeSantis, Congresswoman Laurel Lee and Congressman Byron Donalds spoke at Hillsborough County Republican Party's Lincoln Day dinner last Friday night, they lit up the packed room. Each of them lit the room on fire about what our country is facing to keep our Republic.