Collier County government

Naples Daily News Staff

When county commissioners pass an annual budget they are almost sure to hear a few complaints against the property tax rate that is set at around 15 mills.

So imagine the earful Collier County's early commissioners must have gotten when property owners of 1929 paid a millage rate of 100.5 mills.

The property tax millage - a mill equals $1 in tax for every $1,000 of a property's value - is, along with fees assessed on things like new development, one of the primary tools county government has to raise money.

Back in Collier County's first decade, county commissioners were struggling with demands for roads, public buildings and better services while the debt grew rapidly.

Collier's first county seat was not in East Naples but in Everglades City. The now-famous Everglades City courthouse wasn't even built until 1928. The first county commission meeting came on the afternoon of July 7, 1923, in the Rod and Gun Club in Everglades City.

Collier began its governmental life in debt, according to Charlton Tebeau, a University of Miami historian who published a 1957 history of the region titled "Florida's Last Frontier."

Tebeau claims that when the county was split off from Lee County in 1923 its total assessed value for tax purposes was more than $1.6 million, much of that owned by county founder Barron G. Collier.

The new county's debt was more than $347,000, and the taxes collected that year came in at $125,296.42

By 1929, the taxable value of the county had increased to $3.6 million, but because the debt rose to almost $1.6 million, property owners faced the 100.5-mill tax rate.

"Collier County bonds were never in default but $100 bonds did drop to less than $50 in 1931 and the county was nearest in its history to bankruptcy," Tebeau wrote.

He said the county's financial picture only brightened. Collier began to benefit from new state initiatives that distributed gasoline tax revenue to counties on the basis of square miles and the total length of highways. Collier's share of state gas tax revenue climbed in the early 1930s from $15,000 a year to more than $100,000 a year.

By 1941, the county's total assessed value neared the $10 million mark and the debt was down to just under $386,000. The property tax rate was down to 5.8 mills and that was enough to cover the entire county budget, including schools.

The County Commission even eliminated property taxes entirely in 1946 and 1947 because Collier's share of state gasoline tax revenue covered the cost of county government.

But rapid growth has its price and by the mid-1950s the total taxable value of the county was almost $25 million, and the millage rate had ballooned back to 30 mills.

Collier's total value topped $20 billion in 1995, ranking it 10th in the state of Florida and the highest outside the major urban counties. The total taxable value is $17 billion. The county budget in the current fiscal year is more than $350 million.

A county commission made up of five commissioners, each elected to represent a specific area of the county, oversees that budget and sets county policy at weekly meetings held each Tuesday. A county manager, a spot held by Neil Dorrill for the past 10 years, handles the day-to-day operation of the government and its more than 1,000 employees.

Five elected constitutional officers fill the functions of clerk of courts, property appraiser, tax collector, sheriff and supervisor of elections.

(top)