The Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District Board of Fire Commissioners unanimously approved a budget which will lower the millage rate for property owners in the district from 2.8 mills per thousand dollars of taxable property value to 2.76 mills.<\/p>\n
The budget utilized an increase in property values and the district\u2019s reserves to lower the millage rate, Fort Myers Beach Fire Chief Scott Wirth said.<\/p>\n
The district\u2019s taxable property value went up this past year to $5.46 billion, an increase from the $4.87 billion in the 2024-25 budget.<\/p>\n
While the district is seeing a substantial increase in property value, the operating budget this year will increase by 29% from $17.18 million to $22.16 in part due to a $2 million increase in capital expenses as the district continues its construction project for a new fire station on Estero Boulevard, and embarks on new projects including a new administrative facility and training center off Shrimp Boat Lane on San Carlos Island.<\/p>\n
The district is budgeting $4.65 million for construction projects, a 76% increase over last year. The budget utilized reserves to pay for its current and upcoming construction projects.<\/p>\n
Last year, the district sold its old Station 31 off Estero Boulevard and Donora Boulevard for $875,000.<\/p>\n
The new budget includes $22.1 million in spending and leaves the district with $19.26 million in reserves.<\/p>\n
The budget\u2019s personnel costs will increase by 22% with $14.3 million budgeted for personnel, $3.9 million in benefits including health insurance and pension, and $1.8 million for life insurance.<\/p>\n
The budget includes a $310,000 increase in health insurance cost and $185,000 increase in pensions.<\/p>\n
Based on guidance from the office of the Lee County Property Appraiser, Wirth said he is expecting property values to be adjusted again next year downward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District Board of Fire Commissioners unanimously approved a budget which will lower…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-12413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}