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Home My WebLink About09-22-2024 Tax Increase Ad16A |SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2024 |TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS MC TR-40242860 NOTICE OF PROPOSED TAX INCREASE The City of Sebastian has tentatively adopted a measure to increase its property tax levy. Last year’s property tax levy: A. Initially proposed tax levy ......... $ 6,662,207 B. Less tax reductions due to Value Adjustment Board and other Assessment Changes .............. $ 5,979 C. Actual property tax levy ........... $ 6,656,228 This year’s proposed tax levy ..... $ 7,347,884 All concerned citizens are invited to attend a public hearing on the tax increase to be held on Wednesday, September 25, 2024 6:00 P.M. at City Council Chambers, City Hall 1225 Main Street, Sebastian, Florida A FINAL DECISION on the proposed tax increase and the budget will be made at this hearing. TR-40242901 BUDGET SUMMARY CITY OF SEBASTIAN - FISCAL YEAR 2024-2025 THE PROPOSED OPERATING BUDGET EXPENDITURES OF THE CITY OF SEBASTIAN ARE 7.02% MORE THAN LAST YEARS TOTAL OPERATING EXPENDITURES Millage Per $1,000 General Fund 3.1955 GENERAL FUND SPECIAL REVENUE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT ENTERPRISE FUNDS TOTAL ALL FUNDS ESTIMATED REVENUES: Taxes:Millage per $1,000 Ad Valorem 3.1955 $ 7,131,469 $ 579,875 $ - $ - $ 7,711,344 Sales and Use Taxes - 5,836,742 - - 5,836,742 Utility Service 3,925,450 - - - 3,925,450 Licenses and Permits 184,400 - - 1,093,600 1,278,000 Intergovernmental Revenue 3,952,000 - 2,405,196 - 6,357,196 Charges For Services 957,063 - - 2,754,148 3,711,211 Fines and Forfeitures 67,050 200 - - 67,250 Franchise Fees 1,797,500 - - - 1,797,500 Stormwater Assessment - 2,702,000 - - 2,702,000 Recreation Impact Fees - 130,000 - - 130,000 Miscellaneous Revenue 574,500 328,493 - 124,101 1,027,094 TOTAL ESTIMATED REVENUES $ 18,589,432 $ 9,577,310 $ 2,405,196 $ 3,971,849 $ 34,543,787 Transfers-In 100,000 - 8,525,854 - 8,625,854 Cash Balances Brought Forward - 1,516,497 - 294,984 1,811,481 TOTAL ESTIMATED REVENUES, BALANCES AND TRANSFERS $ 18,689,432 $ 11,093,807 $ 10,931,050 $ 4,266,833 $ 44,981,122 EXPENDITURES/EXPENSES: General Government $ 6,909,880 $ 267,990 $ 861,316 $ - $ 8,039,186 Public Safety 8,471,517 - 684,454 1,467,575 10,623,546 Physical Environment - 2,672,080 3,218,500 - 5,890,580 Transportation 1,495,055 5,901 4,490,780 740,423 6,732,159 Economic Environment - - - - - Culture and Recreation 1,812,980 - 1,676,000 1,852,464 5,341,444 Debt Service - - - 38,500 38,500 TOTAL EXPENDITURES/EXPENSES $ 18,689,432 $ 2,945,971 $ 10,931,050 $ 4,098,962 $ 36,665,415 Transfers-Out - 7,956,079 - 136,991 8,093,070 Reserves - 191,757 - 30,880 222,637 TOTAL EXPENDITURES/EXPENSES, TRANSFERS AND RESERVES $ 18,689,432 $ 11,093,807 $ 10,931,050 $ 4,266,833 $ 44,981,122 THE TENTATIVE, ADOPTED, AND/OR FINAL BUDGETS ARE ON FILE IN THE OFFICE OF THE ABOVE MENTIONED TAXING AUTHORITY AS A PUBLIC RECORD. Congressional Democratic lawmak- ers say democracy and voting rights are under attack, and they will take mea- sures to protect them if they win a sweep in this year’s election – proposing the biggest expansion of voting rights in a generation. “It’s clear that the people’s voices are being squeezed out of our democracy and that it’s impacting our ability to ad- dress a whole range of problems facing the American people,” said Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock. When Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the party’s nomination for president, she pledged to sign into law two voting rights bills if they pass Con- gress: the John Lewis Voting Rights Ad- vancement Act, an update of the land- mark 1965 Voting Rights Act; and the Freedom to Vote Act, a sweeping bill that targets voting access, money in politics and how congressional maps are drawn. Versions of the bills passed the House two years ago, but the Senate held them up via filibuster. Senate Ma- jority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he was willing to change the rules on filibustering to get the bills through, according to the Washington Post. “One of the first things I want to do, should we have the presidency and keep the ma- jority, is change the rules and enact both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Act,” Schumer told a panel in Chi- cago. Implementing the agenda would re- quire the Democrats to win back the House, keep a majority in the Senate and win the White House. The Senate may be their biggest obstacle because three Democratic seats are up for elec- tion are in states that Republicans con- sistently carry: Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. Federal pre-clearance The John Lewis Act would bring back major pieces of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that courts have struck down. A key one would reinstitute pre-clear- ance, requiring states with a history of racial discrimination in voting to get ap- proval from the U.S. Department of Jus- tice or a federal court before enacting new voting laws. The goal is to stop dis- crimination before it happens. The Supreme Court decided in 2013 that the federal government could no longer use decades-old standards to de- cide whether states should be subject to pre-clearance because times were no longer “extraordinary” and the states in question no longer needed such “strong medicine.” “That’s part of why in many places, we are seeing a real surge in voting dis- crimination and a real increase in voter participation gaps between white vot- ers and nonwhite voters,” Wendy Weis- er, vice president of democracy at the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. A study from the Brennan Center ear- lier this year found that while voter par- ticipation has increased overall across the U.S., white voters have been driving the trend. The turnout gap between white voters and nonwhite voters in- creased from 10% to 12% from 2012 to 2020. In Texas, a photo ID law that was subject to pre-clearance went into effect immediately after the 2013 decision. A federal court later overturned the law as discriminatory. The Democrats’ bill would create a modern formula for determining which places would be subject to pre-clear- ance based on recent evidence of dis- crimination. Ending gerrymandering The Freedom to Vote Act takes aim at the longtime practice of politicians drawing congressional districts in un- usual shapes so that their party is likely to win more seats. Democrats and Re- publicans alike have used this practice, called gerrymandering, and ended up in lengthy court battles as people fight the maps. Twenty-one states have had their congressional maps challenged in court since they redrew them in 2022, accord- ing to the Brennan Center. As of August, 10 states had ongoing lawsuits. While it’s illegal to draw maps that discriminate based on race, the Su- preme Court has said it’s legal to draw maps that benefit a party. The bill would make partisan map-drawing illegal. As part of the revival of pre-clearance, the bill would require certain states to have the federal government review the boundaries before they go into effect. “There’d still be districts that were heavily Democrat and districts that are heavily Republican, but it wouldn’t al- low for some of the shenanigans that we’re seeing now where we have these bizarrely drawn districts that really don’t keep communities cohesively rep- resented,” said Rep. Colin Allred, D-Tex- as, who helped the House pass the bill in 2021 and is now running for Senate. Voter registration The Freedom to Vote Act would make it easier to register to vote, which almost all states require before casting a ballot. Motor vehicle offices would be required to register a person to vote when they get a driver’s license unless they specifi- cally opt out. The bill would also allow people to register to vote on Election Day. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, some states have moved up their registration cutoff dates as part of election admini- stration bills. It would be the most significant ex- pansion of voter registration access since 1993’s Motor Voter Act. But elec- tion administration has historically been a local issue, and conservatives call the proposal federal government overreach. “It would have federalized and micro- managed the election process adminis- tered by the states, imposing unneces- sary, unwise and likely unconstitutional mandates on the states,” wrote Hans von Spakovsky, an election reform ex- pert at the Heritage Foundation, after a previous version of the bill failed. Weiser from the Brennan Center said automatic voter registration is a best practice and law in more than half the country. She also pointed to an adminis- trative benefit that conservatives have targeted: accurate voter rolls. She said the automatic voter registration process is all electronic, and the burden goes on the government to update records. Erin Mansfield USA TODAY Implementing their agenda would require the Democrats to win back the House, keep a majority in the Senate and win the White House. ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES FILE Democrats eye voting rights A rare copy of the U.S. Constitu- tion discovered in an old filing cab- inet in North Carolina soon will be at auction. The starting price is $1million, but it’s expected to go for much more than that. Brunk Auctions, a North Carolina- based auction house, is facilitating the sale of the document, which was found in 2022. It is only one of eight known sur- viving signed ratification copies of the document, according to Brunk Auctions. And the sale, which is set to take place on Sept. 28, is the last and only other recorded sale of a sim- ilar document since 1891, the auction house said. Only a fraction of the 100 copies of the Constitution were signed by then-Secretary of Congress Charles Thomson. Thomson was tasked with sending the copies to state legisla- tures in the 13 original colonies after the Confederation Congress met on Sept. 28, 1787. It is that resolution, along with Thomson’s signature, that makes the present copy an official, ratified edi- tion of the Constitution, according to the auction house. The copy of the Constitution will be auctioned on the 237th anniversary of the day Con- gress passed the ratification resolu- tion. “James Madison wrote that the Constitution ‘was nothing more than a draft of a plan, nothing but a dead letter, until life and validity were breathed into it by the voice of the people, speaking through several state conventions,’ ” auctioneer An- drew Brunk said in a statement. “This simple-looking version is what started breathing life into the Constitution,” according to Brunk. North Carolina homeowners found the “incredibly rare” document inside an old filing cabinet when they were getting the house ready for sale in 2022. The home, located on an 184-acre plantation in the coastal town of Edenton, was sold to the state so it could be turned into a public historic site, according to Brunk Auctions. The property was bought in 1765 by then-Gov. Samuel Johnston. It was purchased by another fam- ily in 1865, who lived in the home up until its sale. Rare copy of Constitution to be offered at auction Amaris Encinas USA TODAY The signed ratification copy of the U.S. Constitution was found in an old filing cabinet in a North Carolina home in 2022. PROVIDED BY BRUNK AUCTIONS