Hurricane Irma prevents property tax cut

CAPE CORAL, Fla. Cape Coral homeowners will not see a decrease on their property taxes this year, unlike four of the last five years because cleaning up after Hurricane Irma will cost the city millions.

The rates didn’t raise, but higher property values will mean higher bills. That will pay for hurricane cleanup.

Instead, the property taxes will remain the same at 6.75 mills.

“Because Hurricane Irma came through, and it really, the storm is eating up all of our emergency reserve fund, they couldn’t do it this year,” Connie Barron said.

The city manager initially proposed to reduce the property tax rate to 6.5 mills, but because of Hurricane Irma and delayed funding from FEMA, council said that wasn’t possible.

“We have $4 million in our emergency reserve fund, all that money is going to be spent and we don’t know what the timeline is going to be for FEMA to reimburse us,” Barron said.

Homeowners will receive some relief. The council voted that the fire assessment fee will be 59 percent, as opposed to 64 percent.

“By lowering the fire service assessment, that would still bring in enough money that we’re not concerned about the revenues,” Barron said.

The city tax portion of a homeowners bill will be about $675 per $100,000 in taxable value.