{"id":49935,"date":"2024-09-18T18:08:20","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T22:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=49935"},"modified":"2024-09-18T18:08:27","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T22:08:27","slug":"polk-county-passes-a-nearly-3-billion-budget-for-2024-25-with-increases-in-property-taxes-fire-and-trash-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/09\/18\/polk-county-passes-a-nearly-3-billion-budget-for-2024-25-with-increases-in-property-taxes-fire-and-trash-fees\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County passes a nearly $3 billion\u00a0budget for 2024-25 with increases in property taxes, fire and trash fees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The nearly $3 billion Polk County spending plan<\/a> that passed on Monday will raise property taxes and eliminate curbside recycling while tackling demand for public services for a county that saw an average of 85 people per day move in during 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tax bills will rise slightly for most homeowners in unincorporated Polk County despite a 1% decrease in the millage rate used to calculate property taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Further, the budget raises fees for fire service, as well as trash collection<\/a> to pay for new contracts with private solid waste haulers and an expansion of Polk County\u2019s own fleet of garbage trucks, all while eliminating the county’s curbside recycling program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commission voted unanimously Monday to pass the fiscal year 2024-25 budget following a second public hearing in the County Commission Boardroom at 330 W. Church St. in Bartow. No one from the public spoke at the hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The total tentative budget for Polk County is $2,984,670,147, according to Christia Johnson, the county’s budget and management services director. The county maintains a 45-day reserve to mitigate against potential revenue shortfalls, such as natural disasters, sudden economic downturns, or other unanticipated events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new countywide millage rate is 6.6348, or $663.48 per $100,000 of assessed value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reduction of 1% will be taken off the General Fund component of the countywide millage rate only, Johnson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Polk County Solid Waste fee has been nearly $200 since the 2017-18 fiscal year. This year, it will rise to $337.21, and after that, it will rise 5% per year until reaching $393.52 in fiscal year 2028-29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fire fee has been increased by 5% per year for the past four years and will increase to $281 for the 2024-25 fiscal year, from $268 in the current year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The nearly $3 billion Polk County spending plan that passed on Monday will raise property taxes and eliminate curbside recycling while tackling demand for public services for a county that saw an… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":49936,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/download-2-jpeg.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[9782,9781],"class_list":["post-49935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-fire-and-trash-fees","tag-polk-county-passes-a-nearly-3-billion-budget-for-2024-25-with-increases-in-property-taxes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49937,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49935\/revisions\/49937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}