$307 Million tax error is not a shortfall

Editor, The Sun:

Re: “$307 Million error,” last week’s front page story on the overvaluation of a lot and subsequent budget problems for the county and school board.
As I read the Wakulla Sun’s account of what happened, and what county officials were having to cope with concerning the problem, I took notice of the choice of terminology used to describe what was simply an error. It was a big error to be sure, but an error nonetheless. This error was repeatedly described as a “shortfall.” Why is it being called a shortfall? The answer is because the county budgets took these nonexistent funds into account when planning their budgets. Obviously, no money from the 2024 tax year has been spent by the county or the school district. We have not come up “short” of funds to pay next year’s bills because nothing can be spent out of money that has not been collected yet. Being a lawyer for thirty-three years I understand how important, and slippery, language can be. How an issue is framed by the use of specific terminology can directly impact how a matter will be explained, analyzed, and ultimately resolved.
For instance, in response to this “shortfall,” the Sun quoted County Administrator David Edwards saying: “Thank God we have reserves.” School Superintendent Bobby Pearce is reported to have said that the school district is entitled to state monies to cover the error and that the district has reserves as well.
TIME OUT! The characterization of this error as a shortfall overlooks the elephant in the room. These are funds we simply do not have and which should not have been included in the budget planning process in the first place. The fact is, for all the talk of shortfalls, delay of hiring new employees, and having to dip into reserves, what is being called a “shortfall” is really just another way to describe money that they never had and would not have even planned for had the error never occurred! Now suddenly we are told county officials have to scramble to find money to pay for the amount of an accounting error? Wrong! The sky is not falling. We are not $4.1 million deficient in tax revenue.
I would suggest the responsible thing to do, knowing what [they] know now, is to fix the mistake, rather than find ways to spend money it turns out the county really doesn’t have. Finding creative ways to pay for the error now will have long term consequences because it will cement the error into future budgets. Funding 18 new positions is not a one-time matter. The new positions will be a recurring cost to the county budget year after year. Where will future funding for these new recurring expenses we would not have budgeted for come from in succeeding years? It won’t be from reserves, but it will be from us.
The truth is that we do not have a shortfall, not a single dime of one. We are not short of funds to the tune of $4.1 million dollars. We have a plan to spend $4.1 million that it turns out we never had. Have you ever made plans to buy something and then realize you can’t afford it? That is not a shortfall, it’s simply a reality.
What the county has is an accounting error and some work to be done reprioritizing and recalculating budgets and distinguishing its wants from its essential needs.
The plan now is to find ways to pay for things we should not have planned for, with money we do not have. That approach, I’m afraid, will do more harm and cost taxpayers far more than simply correcting the respective budgets to fix an accounting error. We can dispense with all the talk of “shortfalls” and address the matter by recognizing what it truly is – not a shortfall at all, but an accounting error in need of correction.


David De La Paz, Esq.
Crawfordville