Panama City Commission approves fire service tax cut, mayor says it’s not enough

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (FLV) – The Panama City Commission passed a resolution that decreases the city’s Fire Service Assessment by $1.2 million Tuesday.

The proposal creates an “owner-occupied residential property non-ad valorem exemption” for qualifying homesteads in city limits.

The resolution passed 4-1, with Mayor Michael Rohan voting against it.

“I agree, this is not exactly what I wanted,” Grainger said. “I would have wanted to completely do away with the fire tax, but that’s not a great thing to do. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t even be discussing this.”

Grainger said that in order to not “completely bleed out the city,” the commission is “moving in the right direction” with the assessment reduction.

The fire assessment tax helps pay for the city’s fire department expenses. It was originally introduced in 2020 and has increased by 4.62% since its implementation.

”I campaigned against the fire tax and I’m still against the fire assessment,” Rohan said.

“Something like 60% of the responses from our fire department are medical issues, they’re not fire issues,” he explained. “If 60% of our calls are not for fires, we shouldn’t be paying for ambulances.”

Rohan continued to propose the idea of calculating a potential 50% cut in the fire assessment for the upcoming fiscal year.

“I think if we cut it in half this year, we might be able to look at it next year and cut in half again,” he said.

Commissioner Jenna Flint Haligas mentioned that the EMT services that the city’s fire department provides is a “standard of excellence.”

“We don’t have an intention of taking those medical calls away,” she assured the public.

The commission held a fire assessment tax workshop in June where they considered the options of decreasing or repealing the tax and the effects it would have on the budget.

“In reality, I don’t think we’re going to be able to get rid of it,” Rohan said in an interview with WMBB after the workshop in June.

Rohan’s previous comments about not repealing the tax came after a massive mayoral campaign effort with his promise to remove the tax completely.

“I believe there are other, kinder ways of raising revenue,” he said in a campaign video. “Please elect Doc Rohan and I will repeal the fire tax.”

On Tuesday, Rohan reiterated his support for eliminating the tax.

Rohan won a close mayoral runoff election on May 16 against incumbent Greg Brudnicki, with 52% of the vote.