By St. Johns County Property Appraiser Eddie Creamer
On June 1, my office will submit the 2023 St. Johns County Tax Roll to the Florida Department of Revenue for approval. We will also submit the Tax Roll to each of the local taxing authorities so that they may begin preparation of their 2023 – 2024 annual budgets.
At the same time we will submit our office’s budget to the Florida Department of Revenue for approval. I am very pleased to report that our budget for fiscal year 2023 – 2024 has been reduced by 13.19 percent. The Property Appraiser’s budget has increased by less than 2.5 percent per year during my tenure as Property Appraiser. Our approved budget and our monthly financial statements are available on our website.
The Just Market Value of properties for this year’s Tax Roll is $83.5 billion. That is a 30 percent increase over last year. The Taxable Value of properties is $46.8 billion, a 19 percent increase over last year. Taxable Value in our county has more than doubled over the past seven years. We assess 163,636 parcels, an increase of almost 20 percent over the past seven years. The Property Appraiser assesses parcels under the oversight and guidance of the Florida Department of Revenue and in accordance with the Florida Constitution and Florida law. When property values increase, especially as rapidly as they have in St. Johns County, without action by the taxing authorities (who set the tax rates), your taxes increase.
After approval and advancement of the Tax Roll by the Florida Department of Revenue, we will again submit the Tax Roll to the taxing authorities on July 1. At that time the taxing authorities will finalize their proposed budgets and tax rates and our office will prepare Truth in Millage (TRIM) notices for mailing Aug. 18. The TRIM notice will be available at www.sjcpa.gov on the same day. The TRIM will show each property owner what their taxes were last year, what they are proposed to be this year, and what they would be if the taxing authorities rolled back rates. “Roll Back” indicates the tax rate the taxing authority would set to collect the same amount of money from the taxpayers as in the previous tax year. It should be a guide to assist taxing authorities in controlling budgets and keeping spending in line with measures such as inflation. The TRIM also contains the dates and times of public hearings held by each taxing authority to discuss their budgets.
I encourage property owners to carefully review their TRIM notices, contact our office or me personally at (904) 827-5520 or eddie@sjcpa.gov, to ask questions or discuss the information.
And please attend the budget meetings held by the taxing authorities. The taxing authorities and our elected officials need to hear from you. St. Johns County is a wonderful place to live, work, and raise a family. We can assure it remains that way when each of us become involved in the process.
