Low-income seniors who applied for the Senior Citizens' Homestead Exemption program should know today if they will get an even deeper cut to their property taxes. ...more

January 30, 2008

Amendment 1 passage would give them deeper tax cut. ...more

January 29, 2008

SEBRING — To citizens who have been told their votes on Tuesday won't count, vote anyway. First, the chairs of Highlands County's two political parties agree: Floridians will have a voice into who leads our nation for the next four years. Second, there's a tax cut on the Jan. 29 ballot that will decide how homeowners, mobile home owners, farmers and businesses will be taxed, affecting them all perhaps decades into the future. ...more

January 27, 2008

Plans are on track to build a $2.5 million station to replace one decertified by the county in 2005. ...more

January 26, 2008

Sheree Ellis, the sister-in-law of University of South Florida linebacker Ben Moffitt, received a letter of reprimand from Wildwood Elementary principal Dana Williams after she told The Tampa Tribune she wrote papers for Moffitt, Sumter County superintendent Richard Shirley said. ...more

January 24, 2008

SEBRING — Whether Floridians will vote for a tax cut won't be known until Jan. 29, but four local government officials are against it. "The tax reform doesn't fix the problem," said Guy Maxcy, a Highlands County commissioner. It doesn't correctly modify the taxing system, Maxcy said. The county would lose $5.5 million, according to an estimate provided by Highlands County Property Appraiser Raymond McIntyre. That doesn't count the effect of portability, which would allow homeowners to move the Save Our Homes cap. Save Our Homes is a constitutional mandate that a taxing entity cannot raise the taxable value of the home by more than 3 percent each year. He estimated the average homeowner could save $230 annually in property taxes. But taxing authorities could raise the millage to offset any tax cut created by the Jan. 29 vote, McIntyre said. ...more

January 18, 2008

Suggests several potential remedies. ...more

January 16, 2008

On paper, it looks like Hillsborough County is willing to pay nearly 20 times the official value of about 7 acres of swamp to add it to a 2,000-acre preservation parcel known as the Alafia South Prong. ...more

January 16, 2008

The county property appraiser's office recorded 1,928 foreclosures in 2007, more than a 250 percent increase from 2006. ...more

January 15, 2008

Suggests several potential remedies. ...more

January 15, 2008