Have you ever wondered why Winter Springs doesn’t have its own fire department?
Realizing that they had not adequately planned for and managed the city’s residential growth, the City leaders at that time proposed a 24% tax increase because it could no longer adequately fund its fire department. It then proposed a separate fire fee to be charged to each property so its fire department could operate as a separate fund. This “fire fee fiasco” engaged in by the City of Winter Springs led to the county taking over it’s fire department. This closely resembles the kind of incompetence and neglect that has led to the present situation with the Water and Sewer utility.
Having failed to adequately put money away for the sustainability of its fire department, the city was faced with raising taxes 24%. Instead, they came up with the insane idea of imposing a fire fee that was indexed based upon the size of one’s house. It was nonsense. Probably unconstitutional as well.
The county finally struck a deal to assimilate the city’s fire stations, equipment vehicles and personnel into the county’s fire department. The deal allowed City firefighters to opt out of the county pension system (FRS), AND A NUMBER OF THEM DID, AND THE CITY CONTINUED TO PAY FOR THOSE EXPENSES AND IT STILL DOES TODAY. The current incumbents have failed to learn the lessons of history and have, once again, failed to plan and manage the city’s resources by mismanaging the operations and the capital assets of the Water and Sewer Utility.
City leaders have recently contacted certain County commissioners and broached the idea of the county taking over the water and sewer utility system of the city. Of course, the county is not interested in bailing out the city this time because it is not in the best interests of all of the county rate payers to pay for the neglect and incompetence that has led to the deterioration of the COWS water and sewer system.
What’s worse, the incumbents running for office are trying to hide that a rate study will be conducted, AFTER THE ELECTION, to determine how much the city will have to borrow to fix the system and how that will increase present rates we pay for water and sewer service.
