The city of Tallahassee has tentatively approved a lower property tax rate, not by choice, but over disagreements on how to handle the fire service fee issue.
At their Sept. 3 meeting, during their first of two public hearings for their 2026 budget, commissioners were slated to approve the original property tax rate of $4.42 for every $1,000 of your property’s assessed value, or about $884 for a $200,000 property, but Commissioner Jeremy Matlow laid out grievances with the ongoing fire service fee disputes with the Leon County Commission that he believes needs to be dealt with first.
The two local governments’ relationship has been strained the last few months over the fee. Commissioners have gone back and forth about whether to raise the rates in the face of a gaping budget hole in the fund set aside for firefighting services.
The county has rejected what they said was an unfairly applied and unexpected 22% hike on county residents – the second such double digit increase in two years.
Matlow said he would not vote on the millage rate, which leads to complications at the city over a new state law. HB 1195 states that a two-thirds vote of the local governing body is needed to pass any millage rate increase, which for the city would be 4-1.
The new property tax rate which was tentatively passed in a 3-2 vote was $4.4072 for every $1,000, or about $881 annually on a $200,000 property, but the underlying tension of fire services once again permeates at City Hall.
Matlow suggests talking to county, others say door is closed
Matlow expressed how he was upset with the way the city has handled the discussion of fire services with the county and said voting on any increase without them violated their interlocal agreement which could open up the city to legal trouble.
“What was proposed today is a smaller increase without the county’s support,” Matlow said. “Which is significantly less than where we were at our first meeting where the county offered to fund fire station 17, 15, they agreed to the fire pay increase, they agreed to the $2.5 million dollar debt refinancing and they only rejected $8.5 million for the Insurance Service Office.”
“I think with the uncertainty of this moving forward, this is where I am today,” he continued. “I think we need, we have two weeks, we have two weeks before final (budget) adoption. We need to open up the conversation with the county again.”
Dailey claimed Matlow was holding his vote on the property tax rate “hostage” until he was “satisfied with any negotiation on the fire services fee with the county.”
Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox said that the city should not need to wait on the county: “I don’t think that we, the city, should be in a posture of waiting to see with the county. We are the ones providing a service, we have a contract like we have contracts with other vendors and other folks and we don’t let them tell us how we need to operate.”
With the county refusing to pay any increase, the city has put the brakes on new equipment and building new fire stations, which would have serviced the southside of Tallahassee.
“The county decided not to move forward,” Dailey said. “We are not going to build the new fire station, we are not going to do the expansion of the fire station and quite frankly, we can’t do it without the support of the county, but we are going to fully fund a budget that pays our firefighters negotiated wages that we spent so long working on.”
This carried on later into the budget hearing as commissioners officially voted on the tentative fire service fee. It passed 3-2 with Commissioner Jack Porter and Matlow in dissent. Matlow once again reiterated he wished to reopen discussions with the county.
The second public hearing for the city’s budget will be at their upcoming meeting on Sept. 17 at City Hall.
Arianna Otero is the trending and breaking news reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact her via email at AOtero@tallahassee.com and follow her on X: @ari_v_otero.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Fire services fee dispute leads to delayed votes and lower property tax rates
Reporting by Arianna Otero, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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