By Steve Plunkett
The Briny Breezes Town Council was still trying to figure out dates, but it decided at its April 24 meeting to hold a budget workshop in May as well as the one it customarily has in the summer.
The driving reason: Town Manager Bill Thrasher’s proposal to raise the town’s property tax rate by 80%, from $3.75 per $1,000 of taxable value to $6.75.
Thrasher, who earlier in the day was interviewed about the proposal on Alderman Bill Birch’s BBC8 television show, offered the second workshop session as a way for council members to know better the math behind his plan.
He would raise property taxes to obtain a $2.5 million loan to match the grants the town currently has.
“That funding source, what it looks like and where it comes from, is still being worked on, it has not been determined. We have plenty of time because we have enough reserves to get us started,” Thrasher said in the interview, which can be seen at bbc8.tv. BBC8 is a closed-circuit news outlet for Briny residents.
Using Birch’s 2024 tax bill for an example, Thrasher noted that the alderman paid $167 in town taxes and $1,081 overall to the 13 taxing entities.
At the $6.75 rate and if the taxable value of Birch’s home did not change, he would pay $301 in town taxes, or 80% more, and $1,215 overall, or only 18% more, if all the other tax rates stayed the same, Thrasher said. Birch translated that into a monthly increase of $11.15. “It is nothing major at all,” he said.
Thrasher pointed out that somebody else may have a taxable value that’s larger than Birch’s, adding that “the numbers will change but the percentages primarily will not.”
He called the proposed increase “really not something that as a manager I can say is something I’m proud of, but what I do have to tell you is that it’s absolutely necessary to advance our projects.”
The increase would raise about $300,000 more in property taxes.
Briny Breezes wants to enhance its sea walls and update and modernize its drainage system. The total project cost is $14.4 million. The town has qualified for a $1.4 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is in the midst of a 90-day pause, and a $7.2 million grant from the Resilient Florida program.
“Whether you believe it or not, the town and the corporation have to develop a project for sustainability to protect from seawater intrusion. As tides come in and out, in and out, it’s very destructive. It wears on your sea walls, it wears on your piers, it wears on every part of your protection basin,” Thrasher said.
Along with seeking other grants, “I will be looking to try to obtain donations. … I’ll be begging for money,” Thrasher said. “I’ll try everywhere I can to get money.”
Birch, for one, is on board with Thrasher’s proposal.
“Briny has given generations after generations of families nothing but wonderful memories,” Birch said. “And, let’s just call her a woman — she needs our help, and I think we need to help her.”
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