Trick or treat? How politics, state funding affect Florida’s water management districts
A few months ago it looked like the springs, rivers, lakes and estuaries of Central and Northeast Florida were in for a treat. For the first time in a decade, the governing board of the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) directed staff not to roll back the property tax rate charged to fund the district's core operations. This decision would mean millions of additional dollars would be available next year to protect and restore our ailing waters.
At a July 13 public meeting to propose the district’s 2021-2022 ad valorem tax rate and budget, current SJRWMD Vice-Chairman and former state Sen. Rob Bradley applauded the decision to maintain the current tax rate. “This is a big moment and I’m glad that we’re moving in this direction,” Bradley said.
By the time the next governing board meeting rolled around on Aug. 10, the expected treat had turned into a trick. After “talking with his friends in Tallahassee,” Bradley recommended that the district forfeit much-needed funding by once again adopting a reduced roll-back tax rate, a decision that would strip millions from the district’s budget.
Bradley suggested that the additional tax revenue was unnecessary because the district may receive more money than expected from federal funds passed down by the Florida Legislature. This reasoning fails to account for the enormous shortfall in funding for springs restoration projects.
At subsequent meetings, the governing board unanimously adopted the roll-back rate and removed from the budget $4 million in matching funds for projects to protect and restore springs. Whatever drove this decision, it was clearly not the district’s mission of protecting our water resources or the desires of district residents. During public comments, not one taxpayer within the entire 12,283 square miles covered by the SJRWMD opposed maintaining the current tax rate.
This lost funding was desperately needed. Ten years ago, Rick Scott, then in his first campaign for Florida governor, set out to bring these constitutionally independent special districts to heel. Once elected, Scott and the Florida Legislature forced water management districts to drastically reduce the tax rate charged to property owners, fired many of the best and most experienced staff members, and removed environmentally friendly governing board members. These short-sighted policies have continued under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the governing board members he has appointed while in office.
In 2007-2008, the SJRWMD budget totaled approximately $400 million, with $140 million coming from property tax revenues within the district, supporting a staff of 715 full-time employees. The 2021-2022 budget approved by the governing board totals only $148 million, a 63% decrease from 2007-2008, partially due to a 35% decrease in property tax revenues. The district’s workforce has decreased by 26% since 2007-2008 to just 529 full-time employees.
If the district had maintained the 2007-2008 property tax rate, it would have raised approximately $800 million more dollars over the past 14 years. Just in the coming budget year alone, the district is leaving more than $110 million in property tax revenue on the table — money that is desperately needed to protect Florida’s water resources. This figure, which represents the lost funding for just one of the four water management districts responsible for protecting Florida’s springs, is more than twice the $50 million annual statewide springs appropriation provided by the Legislature.
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These massive revenue and staff reductions, coupled with an unprecedented rollback of regulatory protections for water resources since 2010, paved the way for the water crisis we find in our area today.
As one former water management district staff member describes the problem, “Back in the late 2000s, staff at the St. Johns district really felt like we were holding our own, thinking that we were going to be able to continue positive trends in our surface water restoration efforts, and we were just starting to investigate the challenges to springs. The unprecedented staff and financial hits, frankly, were just far too much. And Florida’s water resources are now burdened with rather devastating and potentially irreversible results. Unfortunately, this same scenario has played out within all of the water management districts so our natural resources are paying the price statewide.”
For the average homeowner, the annual cost of maintaining the existing tax rate would have been less than a bag of Halloween candy per household. For our springs, rivers, estuaries, and the people and wildlife that rely on them, the cost is another year of overpumping and excessive pollution that could have been avoided.
Ryan Smart is executive director of the Florida Springs Council, a consortium of member organizations throughout Florida that is the only statewide group focused exclusively on advocacy for our world-class springs and rivers. He lives in Jacksonville. This column is part of The Sun's Messages from the Springs Heartland series.
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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Ryan Smart: Politics, funding affect state water management districts
