To the Editor:
Minutes after an election, Sumter County comes in for the win…for the county, not for its residents or businesses. To catch everyone up, here’s the short version. The county commissioners voted on a new fire tax and even though the vote was not unanimous, the county pushed the increase through. Now, AFTER most people have already paid their taxes, the fire tax has been determined to have been illegally collected. No problem right? We’ll just go get our illegally gained money back….but NO, the COUNTY decided they’re going to keep our money and deduct it from next year’s taxes … maybe. Well Sumter County, MAYBE not all of us will be here next year. MAYBE some of us live on fixed incomes and have to save, beg, or borrow to pay our ever increasing taxes each year. Sumter County you’ve been increasing our taxes in yearly 25 percent increments, surely giving us back our fire tax wouldn’t hurt your billion dollar budget that much, but it sure did put a dent in your resident’s budgets. I’m sure after what you did the local businesses, you’ll be shelling out the BIG BUCKS to fight those lawsuits in court and all you had to do was the RIGHT thing, pay us back our money.
Sam Kissinger
Village of Pinellas