How Florida Cities Get Their Government

Author : James E. Freeland
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 166 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (133 download)

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Download or read book Public Finance of Florida Municipalities written by James E. Freeland and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chapter one provides an introduction. Chapter two seeks to answer the question of how the property tax affects the tax base. Cities are divided into four types as defined by the census. Principal, central, suburban, and rural cities. The reason for dividing the cities into these categories is to see how the impact of changing the millage rate differs between these different city types. Another question this research seeks to answer is how the millage rate affects different property types differently. To address, the sec- ond question, properties are divided into residential, commercial, and office buildings. Increasing the millage rate decreases property values when controlling for provision of public goods. Increasing the millage rate by one percent decreases tax revenue collected in 28 out of 40 Florida regions. The loss in tax revenue from the lower property values outweights the gain in tax revenue from the increased millage rate in these regions. This finding can help provide a local government playbook in times of financial stress. Chapter three seeks to determine the link between municipal surplus and the number of various land use types. The fiscal impact of alternative land uses are partially determined by existing residents. These residents are guided by self-interest to influence what is built within their community. The makeup of a community in terms of renters versus homeowners influences whether a new project will be built. Another determinant of the project approval condition is a community's fiscal stress. Marginal impact for revenue, expenditure, and surplus are calculated for each land use type. The fiscal impact differs between central and suburban cities and in response to the housing market crash. Using a unique panel of Florida cities, systems of revenue and expenditure equations for each xi type of city are estimated before and after the crash. Results show fiscal tightening differs between central and suburban cities after the great financial crisis. This fiscal tightening can be perceived by comparing surplus effects in the pre- and post-crash time periods. Chapter four seeks to answer the question of how city revenue and expenditure are sep- arately related to the spatial density of various property types. Theory suggests that forces work against one another to either raise or lower public services costs as build- ings spatially concentrate within a city. Concentration lowers costs through economies of density but raises costs due to harshness of the environment as found by Bradford and others (1969), Ladd (1992), Ladd (1993), and Ladd (1994). There is little empirical evi- dence on how these opposing forces play out to affect the budgets of local governments. In this part of the project, empirical estimation addresses questions regarding the rela- tionship between the geography of land uses within cities and public services' costs. Property types that, when becoming more concentrated from their mean level, increase revenues are single-family, offices, retail, other commercial, industrial, and institutional. Property types that, when becoming more concentrated from their mean level, increase expenditure are single-family, multi-family, condominiums, retail, other commercial, industrial, and institutional. In general, development has become more spatially dis- persed within cities over time. Three dimensions of this dispersal are to be considered. As the developed area of a city expands, how are municipal revenues and public ser- vices' costs influenced? Second, as the spatial concentration of buildings within the developed area decreases, what is the impact on municipal revenue and public services' costs? Lastly, how are municipal revenue and public services' costs affected by the spa- tial de-concentration of alternative land uses (for example, single-family homes versus office buildings) within the developed area of a city?