Stop the massive tax hike
Over the last eight years Marco Island’s operating budget grew from $25.5M in FY2017 to $31.9M in FY 2025, an increase of $6.5M over eightyears, the equivalent of a 2.4% average annual growth rate.
Inflation in six of eight of those years ranged from 1.4%-3.4%, (excluding two years of COVID and federal spending induced inflation). The narrative that the city has been starved of money is false. It has been run as one of the most financially conservative and responsible local governments in Florida and perhaps the entire country. Kudos to the city leaders that achieved what few others do.
During this era of $25 million budgets, the city paid down millions in debt, built a beautiful Veterans Park, a new emergency command center and fire station to withstand Cat 5 hurricanes, it rebuilt and widened the bridge on Collier at Smokehouse Bay, just to name a few major multimillion infrastructure improvements. The narrative that the city cannot improve infrastructure with budgets at these levels is false. It is simply a matter of prudently prioritizing projects. Instead, the city is orchestrating an effort to forcibly confiscate more money from the homeowners on Marco…