Cape Coral has cut its fire assessment for the year that starts in October, held the trash charge flat and raised the lot mowing rate, and the three charges that land on a house fall by about eighteen dollars

Cape Coral has cut the fire protection assessment on an average single family home to 515.43 dollars for the financial year beginning October 1, down from 540.17 dollars, while holding the residential solid waste charge flat at 384.25 dollars per dwelling unit and raising the lot mowing rate in all four districts.

The rates sit in three resolutions listed for public hearings on the City Council agenda package for August 26: Resolution 222-26 for solid waste service, Resolution 223-26 for fire protection and Resolution 224-26 for lot mowing. Each is described in the package as the final resolution of the cycle, following introductory resolutions passed on July 22 and notices mailed to assessed property owners in the first week of August.

The Cape Coral Breeze, reporting from the meeting, says the council approved the assessments. Its account, by Meghan Bradbury, records Councilmembers Rachel Kaduk and Keith Long voting against Resolution 220-26, the separate consent item setting commercial and large scale multi family collection rates. No tally is published for the other resolutions, and the city minutes are not yet posted.

The fire assessment falls because the base grew

The fire assessment has two tiers. Tier 1 is a fixed charge every parcel pays, vacant land included, for what the city presentation calls readiness to protect. Tier 2 applies to improved parcels only and is calculated from structure value, which the slide is careful to distinguish from taxable value, expressed in equivalent benefit units.

Cost recovery is unchanged. The city set the assessment to recover 81 percent of fire protection costs in both years, so the lower rate is not a decision to shift more of the fire budget onto general revenue.

What moved is the base. Structure equivalent benefit units across the city rose 7.38 percent while the total to be raised fell 2.29 percent, and a larger base carrying a smaller total produces a rate per unit down 8.93 percent. The average single family figure rests on an average structural value of 275,697 dollars, a footnote the slide carries and this item repeats because the average moves with it.

The package does not state how many dollars of structure value make up one equivalent benefit unit, so no worked example for an individual property is attempted here.

Money raised by the assessment goes to a replacement apparatus schedule, station facility maintenance, a hazardous materials analyzer and HVAC replacement at several fire stations, according to the staff presentation.

The trash charge is flat, but nothing under it is

The residential solid waste assessment is 384.25 dollars per dwelling unit for a second year. The components tell a different story.

Waste Pro receives a 2.75 percent inflation adjustment under its contract, and the Lee County Solid Waste Division approved a 3.25 percent rise in disposal fees covering the municipal solid waste gate fee, horticulture, construction and demolition material and Class III waste. Together those add 11.60 dollars per dwelling unit.

The city absorbed them by taking 11.57 dollars out of its own operating and personnel line inside the assessment. Councilmember Bill Steinke said personnel and capital costs are what the city can control and that those costs were brought down, according to the Breeze, which also reports Solid Waste Manager Terry Schweitzer telling the council that a reserve is held to pay debris contractors while the city waits on FEMA, a wait that after Hurricane Ian ran until August 2024 for a storm that made landfall in 2022.

Lot mowing rises in every district

The lot mowing assessment reaches unimproved parcels only. Lots on the program are mowed thirteen times a year between February and December, and the charge covers pepper tree removal and owl nest trimming from May through January. Rates are set per equivalent lot unit of 5,000 square feet.

A second table gives the annual assessment for what the city calls a standard parcel, running from 96.86 dollars in District 4 to 151.78 dollars in District 1. Each of those figures is exactly twice the equivalent lot unit rate for the same district in the same year.

Maximum estimated operating cost for the program next year is 1,105,467 dollars in District 1, 990,850 dollars in District 2, 1,026,285 dollars in District 3 and 977,972 dollars in District 4.

Adding up the part that lands on a house

Three of these charges fall on an ordinary improved residential property: fire, solid waste and the stormwater user fee the council set at the same meeting. Taking the published figures together, they come to 1,062.68 dollars for fiscal 2027 against 1,080.42 dollars for fiscal 2026, a reduction of 17.74 dollars.

That sum is arithmetic on three averages, not a bill. The fire component is the city average single family figure and will differ with structure value, and lot mowing is left out because it does not apply to a parcel with a house on it.

None of these charges appears on the TRIM notice mailed in August. They are non ad valorem assessments collected with property taxes under the Uniform Assessment Collection Act, which means they do not move with assessed value and they are not in the proposed tax figure a homeowner read on that notice. The millage rate that does appear there is a separate decision, and the council has not yet adopted the fiscal 2027 budget.