In fact, the county and city are budgeted to spend a combined $377 million in 2002. More than $100 million of that comes directly from property taxes. Another huge portion of that tax money comes from local gas and sales taxes.
Citizens for a Better Alachua asks local government what it's doing with your money ?
Where are your hard earned taxes going, who it's being spent on and why? Is your local government wasting the cash you send it every year on too much administration, too high of salaries andtoo many frivolous programs that have no actual benefit?
Often government makes honest mistake that wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to a source in the Alachua County Office of Management and Budget, the county just took a $200,000 hit on a piece of property purchased in 1989 for $800,000 and sold this past year for $600,000.
High-price mistakes like these are not an aberation of an otherwise sound money-managing government. In actuality, the county and city make numerous questionable decisions with your money. CBA has been formed to inform, you, the taxpayers of any unsound financial and legal decisions.
Receiving significantly less coverage than higher government levels, city and county governments' impact in your life is not readily known, but could not be any bigger.
You know, Alachua County residents pay the highest local taxes in the state of Florida. A Gainesville resident that owns a property worth $60,000
pays $1,592 annually in property taxes, while the same property owner in unincorporated Alachua County would pay
$1,505 annually in property taxes.