By Noah Hertz / JAXToday
St. Johns County voters will be asked in November about potentially paying a little extra to fund land conservation.
Voters will consider a potential tax increase to support St. Johns County’s Land Acquisition Management Program. The board overseeing the program identifies environmentally sensitive or otherwise important pieces of land that would be better as public properties than potentially bought up for future development. But funding has been up and down in recent years, with cuts and one-time increases to its budget.
In an effort to make funding for the program more consistent, the county will ask voters in November whether they support a tax increase to help buy conservation land.
If it passes in November, the county would not automatically OK a new property tax levy. All the measure would do is give the county the ability to issue bonds that could be paid back later with money raised from residents’ property taxes.
“Essentially we’re borrowing money with the promise to pay it back overtime with interest,” St. Johns County Budget Director Wade Schroeder says. “So if a project came forward for conservation land and we needed to borrow funds for it then we would go to that bond market, issue the bonds and then that millage rate, or a portion thereof of that millage rate, would repay the bond … and the interest related to that bond.”
