PORT ST. LUCIE — Residents may soon see an increase to their monthly cable, Internet, home and cellphones bills if the city decides this month to increase the communications tax by almost 350 percent.

The City Council gave preliminary approval earlier this week to increase the city’s comunications services tax from 1.5 percent to 5.22 percent, which would provide the city with $4.6 million each year. It’s one possible solution for the city as a way to make up for an anticipated $10 million shortfall in next year’s budget.

Only Councilman Chris Cooper dissented, and Councilwoman Michelle Berger was not present to vote. The panel voted 4-1 to consider raising the communications tax at its retreat in February.

“I didn’t second the motion because I was the one at the city retreat that voted against it,” said Councilman Chris Cooper, “so I haven’t changed my position.”

Mayor Patricia Christensen voiced her support to pass the ordinance for its second reading and final approval at the council’s meeting on March 23.

Vice Mayor Jack Kelly considered tabling the vote to wait for all the council members. He asked City Attorney Roger Orr for advice on how the council should proceed.

“There are some time-frames that are involved, and that’s why we put it on as we did now,” said Orr. “If we put it on now, the (state) Department of Revenue can begin collecting the tax and forwarding the revenue to us in September. If we don’t proceed in this fashion, then that opportunity goes by and we lose at least a quarter of income from the increased tax.”

Orr said the other option is to go forward with a different ordinance, but the city won’t see revenues until April or May 2010 and lose a full year of it. He suggested the council approve the first reading of the ordinance so a full council can make the final decision and still be on time.

Communications director Ed Cunningham said the vote had to be done now to allow the state department time to process the paperwork and notify the communications providers. He said the city held off as long as possible while most other cities levied the tax when it was created by statute in 2001.

“We need the revenue the tax will provide,” Cunningham said.

WHAT THE TAX INCREASE COULD MEAN TO YOU:

For monthly bills excluding taxes and fees:

A $30 Internet bill communications tax would increase from 45 cents to $1.56.

A $50 home phone bill communications tax would increase from 75 cents to $2.60.

A $60 cable bill communications tax would increase from 90 cents to $3.12.

A $70 cellphone bill communications tax would increase from $1.05 to $3.64.

By Laurie K. Blandford

Tags: budget, cable, cell, communication, fees, home phone, Internet, raise, taxes

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 10:42 am and is filed under Port St. Lucie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.