Although both Gov. Rick Scott (R) and former Gov. Charlie Crist (D) face August primary election challenges, they are going head-to-head on the airwaves like it was a November general election.
A recent commercial put out by the Crist campaign looked to blame Scott for a hike in property taxes. Here's what the commercial said:
"Rick Scott raised your property taxes...."
PolitiFact checked out this claim and reporter Joshua Gillin says that Crist's claim rates MOSTLY FALSE.
Gillin says that the former governor is making a few leaps with the facts and figures.
"What we're ultimately talking about here is a portion of your property taxes called the Required Local Effort," Gillin said.
"What that is, in a nutshell, is that portion of your property taxes from local municipalities go to the state education budget for K-12 funding. What the Crist camp is saying is that, this year, there's more money coming into that fund because the state is taking in more in property taxes, and the numbers do back up the claim that more money is coming in due to RLE collections."
On the other side of the fence, the Scott administration doesn't quite see it that way.
"Talk to the governor's office and they'll tell you that those taxes are set by a millage rate, and that millage rate is agreed on by the governor, the Legislature, and the State Department of Education," Gillin said. "When that rate is decided upon, that rate is in effect for the entire year. So now, armed with several years of rates, you can look and say whether or not the rate has increased or decreased ... and the data shows that the current rate is actually lower than it was in previous years."
Gillin said that the Crist camp is calling it a "tax increase" because more money is coming into the state via the RLE collections. Crist campaign spokesperson Kevin Cate told PolitiFact that "inaction is also action. And, in this case, Rick Scott's actions raised taxes." The actual RLE millage tax rate has been in decline since 2011-2012, which goes against the claims made in Crist's commercial, leading PolitiFact's to rate this claim as MOSTLY FALSE.
SOURCES: DID RICK SCOTT RAISE PROPERTY TAXES?
- PolitiFact ruling
- Charlie Crist campaign ad, "Up Here," July 31, 2014
- Tampa Bay Times, "Rick Scott, Charlie Crist ready to rumble," May 5, 2014
- Tampa Tribune, "School tax increase equals Scott’s other tax cuts," May 5, 2014
- PolitiFact Florida, "Charlie Crist says Rick Scott cut K-12 by $1.3 billion in his first year and higher ed by $300 million in his second," Nov. 11, 2013
- PolitiFact Florida, "Charlie Crist says 'Rick Scott tried to slash school funding by $3.3 billion'," March 27, 2014
- PolitiFact Florida, "Required local effort's rate barely budges in four years," July 21, 2014
- PolitiFact Florida, "Marco Rubio says he never voted to increase taxes," Nov. 25, 2009
- PolitiFact Florida, "School tax cuts proposed are less than half of what Rick Scott promised," Feb. 9, 2011
- Florida Department of Education, "Florida Education Finance Program 2014-15 Second Calculation," July 14, 2015
- Florida Department of Education, "Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) Calculations," accessed July 31, 2014
- Interview with Kevin Cate, Charlie Crist campaign spokesperson, July 31, 2014
- Interview with Matt Moon, Rick Scott campaign spokesperson, July 31, 2014
- Interview with Cheryl Etters, Florida Department of Education spokesperson, Aug. 1, 2014