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Taxes, taxes and perhaps more taxes will be the main topic of conversation at this week’s Marco Island City Council meeting.

“I was personally hoping our government would leave us alone for a month this year, but you know Marco, if we don’t tax and spend on a regular basis we get kind of jittery,” said Councilor Ted Forcht in his common “tongue-in-cheek” commentary in an e-mail to his constituents.

City Council will be setting the maximum ad valorem rate as the City Manager is required to provide Collier County with the maximum ad valorem rate by Aug. 1.

After this point the city may adopt a lower tax rate, but will not be able to tax higher than the rate which will be set Thursday evening by council.

City Council will be presented the expenditure budget in a meeting tentatively scheduled for Aug. 4.

Two main issues will likely be battled out by council before the maximum ad valorem rate is established. These are setting up a fire assessment and whether to charge Islanders payment-in-lieu-of taxes (PILOT) on their water bills. PILOT is a way for the city to collect tax dollars lost when the water utility was municipalized.

The fate of these revenue sources will likely affect the ad valorem rate.

“Council has supported replacing the two Smokehouse Bay Bridges, and to do so we will need to spend up to Marco Island’s Charter required spending cap. To make this happen financially the tax rate will increase slightly from 1.2048 mils to 1.3847, plus the fire rate increase of 15 percent of maximum. The Council could also choose to fully fund the budget with property taxes, and avoid the use of the fire assessment fee, at a property tax rate of 1.4138,” Thompson said.

“There are literally thousands of permutations,” he added.

According to the council’s packet given for review in advance of the meeting, the storm water utility fund will not be one of the alternative revenue sources up for discussion because it will be a self supporting enterprise fund.

The highest potential tax rate is 1.4540 mils. One mil is equivalent to $1 for every $1,000 worth of taxable property value. To set this rate requires a super-majority vote of the council or five out of the seven councilors consent.

“(PILOT) is not acceptable to me as it would be another charge added on to the water/sewer utility bill. My reasoning is that there is so much misconception and misunderstanding to the water/sewer utility bill that the timing for this is totally incorrect. I will address my feelings for this at City Council,” said Councilor Wayne Waldack.

Customers’ utility bills have gone up 14 percent, not including cost of living increases, since the city took over the water utility. These additions on the bill were to accommodate construction of the city sewer system (STRP) and repaving of roads due to that construction.

“PILOT, I don’t even want to talk about it because it will go on the water/sewer bill. People are using (the rise in their water bills) against the idea of electric municipalization because we messed up water,” Waldack said.

He said the water/sewer utility has not increased rates other than a cost of living adjustment and adding fees for other services on to that bill misleads and confuses people.

Waldack said perhaps these fees could stay on the bills but they should be itemized. The fire assessment is something Waldack said he personally agreed with.

“This not an issue of leveling the playing field, it is an issue of attempting to find revenue sources other than ad-valorem/property taxes that is as fair as humanly possible to Marco Island property owners. It is not about homesteaded versus non-homesteaded. It is just a more fair way of collecting revenue,” he said.

“The fact remains: All single family homes will pay the same. All condos will pay the same. All vacant lots will pay the same. All businesses will pay the same based on square footage” using an assessment, he added.

Forcht sees the fire assessment somewhat differently.

“According to everyone who wants this it’s a good deal to cut the Fire Department out of the city’s budget, and this ordinance doesn’t remove the Fire Department from the CAP. I wonder if this is the first of many of these assessments we will see. I’m generally in favor of fee for service government, but I consider the Fire Department an essential service and it should be under the control of the City Council,” he said.

As far as setting the maximum ad valorem tax levy, Forcht wrote in an e-mail:

“My Dad was talking to me the other morning and asked, ‘I love Marco, what’s that love going to cost me?’ The good news is that we have a budget that is inside the CAP limit, as we have since we became a city. The budget hasn’t been fixed yet, but the top maximum property tax rate has been set at 1.4540 mils. When I say the budget hasn’t been fixed I mean that we will be moving money from here to there for a little while longer but as far as the big stuff goes it’s pretty much settled.”

The varying possibilities of how to collect money from the tax payers differ on whether the funding stream includes the fire assessment district and the PILOT but either way the total tax-supported budget is $19,655,898, Thompson said.

Forcht said there were other aspects he didn’t like about the budget plans which include PILOT and the fire assessment district.

“It’s got a blue million variables in it. Homestead, non-homestead, commercial, PILOT. As I’ve told you before I have relatives who are homesteaded, non-homesteaded, and even that do business on Marco. Do you think Ill ever hear the end of it if my aunt pays less assessment than my Dad,” Forcht asked rhetorically.

Forcht also said he pondered the value of “creating a position of comptroller” or an internal auditor for the city.

“An autonomist department that didn’t work for finance or public works, but was autonomist and did all kinds of internal audits then reported to the council and city manager once a month or so. It’s just a thought,” he said.

Other items on the City Council agenda include:

– A request by Mike Gosik, a prospective buyer of 266 Seminole Court to reduce code enforcement fines from $76,500 to $25,000 on the property accrued by the current owner, Lazaro Carret, for failure to replace a sea wall.

– A request from Public Works for a variance to the 25-foot required front yard setback to 12.5 feet in order to construct a new water plant operations building and pump station at the North Water Treatment Plant, 771 Elkcam Circle.

_ Longevity recognition and $2,000 bonuses for seven city employees, including Jack Green, chief water plant operator for 30 years with water utility.

– Recommendations for Jo-Ann Sanborn to the Arts Advisory Committee, M.A. Kline and Susan Purvis to the Beach Advisory Committee and Don Henderson to the Waterways Advisory Committee.

The City Council meeting is 5:30 p.m., Thursday, in the Community Meeting Room next to the Marco Island Police Department, 51 Bald Eagle Dr.

Look for coverage from the meeting at marconews.com and in next Wednesday’s Eagle.