Fire Assessment
The City of Kissimmee continues to take essential steps to ensure the continuation of high-quality fire services for our community.
Last year in April the City Commission adopted a directory resolution that authorized the initiation of a process that was necessary for the City Commission to consider the imposition and collection of special assessments to fund about 25% of the annual cost of the availability of fire protection services and facilities within the City of Kissimmee. Among other things, this should help to share in keeping property insurance rates low in our community. A better rated community fire department by insurance underwriters, tends to result in lower insurance premiums to property owners served in that community.
That action was supported by a staffing study for the Kissimmee Fire Department which provided supporting evidence to allow the Fire Department’s command staff to make a recommendation to transition to a 24/72 work schedule, which would require 49 new positions with an estimated annual impact of approximately $6M. That also supported an amicable way to resolve an impasse with labor, was designed to lessen reliance on overtime and smartly expanded our fire fighting force, protects the City's investment in training fire fighters, and conformed to the Legislature’s encouragement in s.633.508, Florida Statutes, which was subsequently signed into law by the Governor last Summer.
While staff looked at various funding options to support enhancing the level of service, the most equitable and sustainable option was to pursue the implementation of a fire service assessment. This was a critical step to ensure the Kissimmee Fire Department is equipped and staffed to serve our growing community, while again avoiding a property tax millage increase for over 16 years.
An annual Fire Service Assessment is part of a larger effort that began with a public hearing in December 2024 and has progressed through a fire staffing study workshop and public hearings last year. City management, staff, and legal counsel have worked with experts to create a carefully planned process to ensure fairness and adherence to Florida law.
The process involves careful planning to ensure that costs are shared fairly and reasonably among all assessable properties in the City. The City is also followed all necessary legal steps, including providing public notice, initial individually mailed notice explaining each parcel’s assessment to property owners, then holding a well-attended public hearing in June last year, all of which allowed this assessment to be included in the City's budget planning last year and now in ensuing years. Part of that approach was to severely limit indexed rate increases to a maximum of 2% each ensuing year. Accordingly, the rates for this year have been limited and noticed to be changed by one cent ($0.01), from 56 to 57 cents per $1,000 improvement value (not land) associated with each assessable tax parcel for (sharing more variable budget costs) Tier 1, and from $105.00 per tax parcel to $107.10 for each assessable parcel for (sharing more fixed budget costs) Tier 2.
The links on this page provide a guide for more information, including a preliminary roll and a copy of the annual published notice.
Fire Assessment Calculator