Undeserved Credit

       So, today’s local newspaper did it again. What exactly is “it?” Allow me to set it up for you.

       We live in a planned retirement community called “The Villages.” Let me be clear; we like it here. It is a good place to live with numerous cultural events, such as concerts, national tour Broadway shows, continuing education and volunteerism opportunities, and more golf holes than anywhere else in the world, and if you can’t find something to do here that captures your fancy, you’re just not trying. We are far more active here than we would be had we stayed in Orlando.

      The Villages is the creation of a Republican Party mega donor (now deceased) and his family has continued that agenda. The local newspaper is also markedly Right in its leanings. The op-ed page has discontinued publishing letters to the editor, apparently because some (like this writer) wrote the occasional literate, researched, letter denouncing actions of the current administration. Most responses to such letters were semi-literate, rife with falsehoods, and inflammatory. All in all, halting printing of these might not have been all that bad.

       So, what am I talking about? Well, every year about this time, just before the commencement of election season in these even years especially, the Villages Daily Sun runs a front-page story declaring that taxes in Sumter County, presumably due to amazingly adept fiscal stewardship by a Republican county administration, are not increasing (actually slightly decreasing!) yet again (14th year in a row!) As a taxpayer, of course, I appreciate that. As a sentient being, however, I also realize that the thrust of the article is gratuitous chest thumping, claiming credit where none is due.

       Sumter County, Florida was the poor man of Florida, pre-Villages. The capital, Bunnell, a whopping 3,000 or so folks (still today) was, and remains, representative of the generally depressed agricultural nature of the county, which, while it has several landed ranches and farms, was generally, to be charitable, not “well off.” Consequently, school and real estate taxes generated less revenue than was required to maintain the school system and other county services at the desired level.

       All this began to change with The Villages. In the early 1980s, the Villages began building new homes to the west side of US 441, initially within a weirdly shaped corner of Lake and Marion counties. Both Lake and Marion counties have other and larger municipal areas within their borders. Consequently, while significant in size, The Villages is in no way the dominant economic or political driver of county politics in either.

       However, within several years, now the fastest growing new housing community in America, which it still is, new homes were being built in Sumter County. Within a relatively short period (less than 10 years, The Villages represented the majority of the population of Sumter County and at one time elected all of the Sumter county commissioners as well as a State Representative, a military retiree. That majority has increased markedly to the present. Since that time almost all new construction in the community has been in Sumter County with about 20,000 more homes planned.

       Ok, so what about the newspaper article? Relax, Bruce, I’m getting there. There are several commonalities which make the Villages unique. As a community, the Villages in Sumter County totals at least 80,000 of the total county population of 118,000 residents. Essentially everyone who lives here has been able to afford, by whatever means, to retire here. There are very few, if any, “Villagers” in Sumter County who use social services paid from Sumter County’s coffers other than the Library system. Even more significantly, all Villages residents pay their county tax bill on time and in full. A significant portion of said tax burden is school taxation. Understand this critical data point: at least 40,000 Villages households in Sumter County pay school tax. None of these households has children in schools in the county.

       This isn’t a complaint. I believe, as I would hope most rational folks do, that it is our obligation to insure we educate all our children to the best extent we can, and that paying school tax is one of those things we do in furtherance of that societal aim. My point here is that ballyhooing “Conservative Republican fiscal policy” as the reason there is no tax increase is mindless political drivel, considering the huge input from the Villages without use of school and social services taxes.

       In fact, the real story would be if there was ever a tax increase in Sumter County, Florida, one of the few counties in the USA which, thanks to The Villages, actually has more tax revenue that it knows what to do with.