“The Melbourne Beach Volunteer Fire Department structure is no longer a viable option.”
-Fire Chief Gavin Brown
Quarrie’s Fire Tax
Candidate Sherri Quarrie has developed a simple formula that every resident in the Town of Melbourne Beach can use to learn what the financial impact to your household budget would be IF OUR FIRE SERVICES ARE TAKEN OVER by BREVARD COUNTY.
Please Note: This calculation will only reflect the Melbourne Beach portion of your tax bill.
Directions: Enter the 2025 TAXABLE VALUE of your home (not the market value) on line 1, and the base-area square footage of your home on line 2.
It’s important to remember that FIRE SERVICE is mandated by FL Law. It’s NOT an option to opt out. If we don’t CHOOSE an option, Brevard County WILL take over control and assess a FIRE TAX on each property.
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Take-Over by Brevard County
Brevard County would take control and asses a FIRE TAX to your county tax bill that will include two new charges based on the following FORMULA
PLEASE NOTE: This calculation ONLY reflects the MELBOURNE BEACH portion of your total tax bill.
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Town of Melbourne Beach HYBRID MODEL
The Hybrid Model includes full-time paid firefighters and volunteer firefighters working together. The cost would remain in control by the Town of Melbourne Beach and all community events sponsored by the fire department would remain active.
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Take-Over by Indialantic
Town of Indialantic could possibly take control with their paid fire department. An unconfirmed yearly cost of $800,000 was discussed.
Everybody who owns real estate in Brevard County gets a TAX BILL from the Brevard County Tax Collector. Each residential tax bill has two sections: 1) Ad Valorem Taxes, and 2) Non-Ad Valorem Assessments.
Residents in the Town of Melbourne Beach currently pay two separate line items in Ad Valorem Taxes, aka: “Above-the-line”. The two line items are: Town of Melbourne Beach with the current millage rate of 4.4770; and Melb Bch Stormwater at 0.2350 Both of these items are based on the assessed value of your property as determined by Brevard County. Certain exemptions may apply to a portion of your assessed value based on “Homestead”, “Widow”, or “Military” discounts. The “Save Our Homes” cap gives an additional reduction to your assessed value based on how long you have owned your home.
Residents in the Town of Melbourne Beach also pay two line items in Non-Ad Valorem Assessments, aka: “Below-the-line”. These are yearly across-the-board fees, per household. One is $36.00 for Stormwater Melb Bch; and the other one is $69.80 for Solid Waste Disposal.
Right now, our fire service is still a part of the total budget for the Town of Melbourne Beach. The Fire Chief asked for six paid firefighters in order to cover the station adequately. If the SAFER Grant is approved, we would have funds to cover the majority of the cost for the six firefighters for the first two years and a lesser portion in the third year. The caveat is, the grant is a reimbursement grant and will only pay for how many firefighters we have on payroll. The current commission voted to approve three paid full-time firefighters, plus the paid fire chief and keeping 24 volunteer firefighters in the 2026 budget. The total cost is approximately 18.97% of the entire budget.
Commission candidate Steve Walters stated during public comment, that he was committed to repealing the current commission’s vote if elected. His political rhetoric is concerning and misleading. If Walters and Larson are elected, they could refuse to hire the three paid full-time firefighters, thus putting our town in a critical situation where we would be forced to relinquish fire services to Brevard County.
In any case, if the FIRE SERVICE for the Town of Melbourne Beach cannot withstand the skeleton crew of the three paid firefighters with the volunteers still being expected to tow the line to cover the call requirements, the department may fail after-all. If and when that happens, our fire services will revert to the county. NOW is the time to understand the consequences that this could have on our safety and your personal budget.
What can you do? At the very least, use the FORMULA to understand the impact that a County controlled fire service will have on your personal budget. Educate yourself and help your neighbors understand too.
PLEASE NOTE: This calculation only reflects the MELBOURNE BEACH portion of your total tax bill.
Directions: Enter the 2025 TAXABLE VALUE of your home (not the market value) on line 1, and the base-area square footage of your home on line 2. Your answer will be what the Melbourne Beach portion of your total tax bill will be if we keep our local fire department VS. what the Melbourne Beach portions of your total tax bill will be if the Town of MB has to revert to Brevard County for our fire services.
It is important to know that even though the Ad Valorum portion of our Melbourne Beach taxes will be 18.97% lower because we would no longer have local fire department services as a part of our budget, the total impact upon each household WILL BE HIGHER due to the County’s two assessed taxes (MSTU and the Fire Special Assessment) that WILL be added to our tax bills yearly. Quarrie’s formula takes a very complicated situation and breaks it down into an easy-to-understand calculation.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? You may be asking yourself, “Didn’t the Commission approve the Hybrid model for our Melbourne Beach Fire Department? Yes, it has not been implemented yet. One thing that is for certain, is change. We will only be certain once the vote has been put into affect. This is precisely why we need candidates Cronin and Quarrie on the Commission!