St. Johns County Commissioners unanimously approved a $1.05 billion budget for fiscal year 2021 at the final public hearing Monday, Sept. 21. The board also set the tax rate at $6.81 per $1,000 of a property’s taxable value.
The new rate is actually 0.23% lower than the rolled-back rate of $6.85, which is the rate needed to bring in the same amount of revenue as last year, adjusting for changes in property values.
The county property appraiser’s office determined that property values have risen 11.13% since last year. This brings the county’s total certified taxable value to $31.66 billion.
The new rate will bring in $215.7 million in taxes, an $8.4 million increase over 2020.
In addition to rising property values, one of the reasons the board was able to hold down the rate was the county’s healthy reserves, $11.2 million of which is unrestricted.
A tentative rate of $7.25 per $1,000 of taxable value had been proposed earlier in the budgetary process. That would have left the rate unchanged from fiscal year 2020.
But the board voted Sept. 8 to go with $6.81, a decrease of 3.2% from last year, members citing the financial impact of COVID-19 on taxpayers.
The new rate means that the owner of a home with an assessed value of $300,000 and a homestead exemption of $50,000 will pay about $1,703 in county taxes next year.
