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PolitiFact Florida: Three claims in Buckhorn TV ad miss the full picture

 
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn speaks during a press conference at Tampa International Airport in November as Lufthansa announced it was starting direct flights from Frankfurt, Germany, to Tampa.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn speaks during a press conference at Tampa International Airport in November as Lufthansa announced it was starting direct flights from Frankfurt, Germany, to Tampa.
Published Jan. 18, 2015

TAMPA — The ad that Mayor Bob Buckhorn's re-election campaign has spent $160,000 running on Tampa cable television is called "Swagger," with Buckhorn cheering an economic rebound.

But does Buckhorn's pride run ahead of the facts? PolitiFact Florida, the political fact-checking arm of the Tampa Bay Times, looked at three statements from his TV spot about the area's economy and City Hall's finances:

• "We're leading the state in jobs creation."

• "Bob balanced the budget without raising taxes."

• "Bob . . . secured the highest possible bond rating."

Buckhorn stands by all three. The jobs creation claim, he says, refers to the Tampa Bay area as a whole, not just his city. He has not raised the city's property tax rate even when property values were down. And four upgrades from credit rating agencies show "not only is this a well-run operation, it is a superior operation."

"The folks who vote for me should be pretty happy with that," said Buckhorn, who faces a write-in candidate on March 3.

Job creation

Try as they might, mayors have limited ability to influence job growth when compared to larger economic trends.

This time last year, the bay area led all Florida metros in adding jobs over a year's time, with 35,400 new jobs in the 12 months ending in December 2013.

That changed in 2014, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

Through November, the most recent month for which figures are available, the bay area created 12,900 jobs in 12 months. That tied it with West Palm Beach for fifth place.

In 2014, the top four metro areas for job creation were Orlando (46,300 new jobs), followed by Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville.

A longer view looks better. From April 2010 to April 2014, the bay area added 134,346 jobs, more than Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville or West Palm Beach.

Buckhorn's commercial says "we're leading the state in jobs creation." That was true for several years, but the trend changed in 2014. PolitiFact rated his statement "Mostly False."

The budget

For this year, Buckhorn proposed an $876 million budget based on the same property tax rate as last year.

Two factors go into property owners' annual tax bills: their property value and the tax rate. The first is assessed by county property appraisers. The second is set by local governments.

Multiply the assessment by the tax rate — expressed in mills, with 1 mill equaling $1 in property tax for every $1,000 of assessed taxable value — and that equals the tax owed.

In Tampa, the city has kept the same tax rate — about 5.73 mills, or $5.73 in city taxes for every $1,000 of assessed taxable property value — for eight years.

Buckhorn notes that the city kept that rate even as property values fell, dragging revenues down with them. City property tax revenues fell from $160 million in 2009 to about $117.4 million in 2013.

"We've been consistent," he said. "Losing $40 million in revenue out of $160 million took a huge toll on us, but to compensate for that, we didn't bump it up to raise the like amount. We just did more with less money."

In the past two fiscal years, property values have started to rise again. Now the same tax rate generates more revenue — $123.5 million last year and an expected $132.2 million this year.

Buckhorn said there has been no tax increase because he did not raise the tax rate, which he said is largely what people react to when they think of taxes.

But the interplay between tax rates, property values and the tax the two generate together has been the focus of Florida's Truth in Millage law since its passage in 1980.

The law requires local governments to tell taxpayers what property tax rate would generate the same revenues for the coming year as in the current year.

If property values — not including things like new construction and building additions — have risen, then the calculation determines how much officials would have to "roll back" the tax rate to generate the same amount of revenue.

If they propose a rate higher than the rollback rate — including the rate they already have — the law requires them to advertise a tax increase.

That's what the city of Tampa has done the past two years when its adopted tax rate was 4.4 and 5.2 percent, respectively, above the rollback rate.

Buckhorn said the additional revenue generated by keeping the same property tax rate instead of lowering it to the rollback rate is not a tax increase.

"That is a function of the value of the property," he said. "It's not a function of the baseline tax (rate) that the city assesses. . . . There's a difference between somebody paying more because the value of their house increases versus the city assessing a higher rate to generate more revenue."

That line of thinking, however, was what legislators were trying to push back when they wrote the Truth in Millage law.

"It is an incorrect statement to say that you haven't increased taxes if you don't go back to the rollback rate, because you have," said Benjamin Phipps, a Tallahassee lawyer and expert on property taxation.

Buckhorn's TV ad says he "balanced the budget without raising taxes." Because Tampa kept its property tax rate constant as the total value of property in the city rose, it has had property tax revenues rise the past two fiscal years. And state law required it to advertise a tax increase both years. PolitiFact rated this statement "Mostly False."

Bond ratings

Credit rating agencies gave Tampa good news four times in 2014:

• Fitch Ratings raised its rating on Tampa's water and sewer bonds from "AA+" to "AAA," its highest rating.

• Standard & Poor's boosted its rating on what's considered to be the city's general credit from AA+ to AAA, its highest for municipalities.

• Standard and Poor's upgraded the city's occupational license revenue bonds from AA to AA+.

• Moody's Investors Service upgraded its rating on the city's solid waste bonds from A3 to A2.

But the city has hundreds of millions of dollars in other bond issues that do not have the highest ratings assigned by those agencies. All are rated "investment grade," but some have ratings a notch or more below the top.

Also, Standard & Poor's is the only agency so far to give its top grade to Tampa's general credit rating. Moody's and Fitch rate it just below their top ratings.

Buckhorn said it's not possible to summarize all the city's bond ratings in a TV ad. He acknowledged Tampa could earn even higher ratings on some debt.

"We strive for that," he said. "So is all of our debt triple-A? No. I would venture to say there's probably not a city in America where all of the debt is triple-A. Is a big portion of our debt triple-A? You betcha. . . . I'm proud and I'll say it wherever I go."

Buckhorn's ad says he "secured the highest possible bond rating." Looking at the phrase "highest possible," PolitiFact found room for improvement and rated this statement "Half True."