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Highlands Today

Council To Vote On Fire Fee Hike

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By DOUG CARMAN Highlands Today

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 25, 2008

AVON PARK - Vernon Harkey knew his church would have to fork over more money for the fire assessment next year.

The moment the city's churches and non-profit organizations paid a fire assessment for the first time last August, he anticipated the amount would double after tonight's city council decision.

The pastor of the First Baptist Church of Avon Park, the second-largest church area-wise in the city after the Avon Park Holiness Camp, said that he even budgeted for it, expecting to pay more than $9,000 for the fee if the council decides to charge the full institutional rate tonight.

"We respect our leaders, even if we don't always agree with them," Harkey said. "We're going to pay the tax... Do we like it? No. Is it the best use of our money? No, but... we respect the government and I pray for them. They have a job, they're just making ours tougher."

Four of the five council members suggested last month that they planned to hike the fire assessment up by at least 50 percent of the rate the churches and non-profit institutions are paying now.

The council argued in July that the city needed to collect more from them to continue funding their fire department as their property tax revenues declined.

The proposed residential assessments will remain at $165.

Last year, Harkey, the Avon Park Holiness Camp and at least one other church objected to the council before it approved its fire assessment for institutions. No one made any public complaints about the rising rates yet, and Harkey said he didn't plan to make one either.

When asked how it would affect the church, he said they would have to make several cuts, and he mentioned the church's contributions to the Samaritan's Touch Care Network, a Christian clinic that provides free health care to the poor and also evangelizes to its patients.

"When you take that money away, this is what you're taking away from me," Harkey said as he showed a video on Samaritan's Touch and its work. He said he contributes about one percent of the church's $550,000 money to the clinic, but he did not say how much of those contributions would be scaled back to pay the increased fire assessment.

The city will hold a public meeting on the fire assessment tonight at 6 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at 123 E. Pine St., behind City Hall.

Doug Carman can be reached at 386-5838 or dcarman@highlandstoday.com

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