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I am sure that all other Marco Island residents have, like I, received their notice of proposed property taxes. They need to pay attention to the city of Marco Island tax line based on the proposed budget change. From the amount on my notice, I was able to calculate that the proposed mill rate will be about 1.454. Now compare that to the mill rate for the prior year which was 1.2048. Thus, the new proposed rate is an increase of 0.2492, or about 21 percent higher.

I am outraged. The problem I have with the city proposed budget is that it ignores what is going on in our economy. Property values are dropping, inflation is higher, people are suffering foreclosures. Insurance rates are higher due to disasters. Energy and transportation are up more than 40 percent year to year, mostly to the fault of our own state and federal governments. The problem with government in general is that it is not run like a business. When business is tough, business people make tough decisions. Some of those decisions are hard on people and families. There are lay-offs, there are salary cuts, there are project that get postponed or not get done at all.

I ran a company for many years and I never had the luxury to get my customers to pay more during bad times. I always had to find other ways to survive. I expect nothing less from our elected officials.

The budget meeting is this coming Tuesday. I encourage all of you to attend this meeting and tell our city officials that they need to govern in line with the economic realities and do it in line with sound financial decisions. The message is: “No Mill rate increase. Freeze hiring, postpone projects, eliminate waste. Learn to manage with less. Good managers are not those who do a good job when times are great, good managers are the ones who can do a good job when times are bad.”

Thank you very much.

Victor N. Rios, Marco Island