Lee County property appraiser Matt Caldwell has released the estimated property values for municipalities that each of those communities will use to formulate their next fiscal budget. It was a very good year for property values on Fort Myers Beach.
Caldwell and his team estimate that Fort Myers Beach properties will jump from $4.6 billion in value last year to $6 billion in 2022. That’s an increase of nearly 31%.
The $6 billion figure is not the dollar amount that will be used to calculate the Fort Myers Beach budget once the town applies its millage rate. After homestead exemptions and other caps are calculated in, Caldwell estimates the figure for calculating the town’s budget will be $4.42 billion. That’s an increase of 14% from 2021. The tax base figure the town based its current budget on, after the homestead exemption and caps, was $3.9 billion.
If these numbers hold, the town of Fort Myers Beach will see an additional $539,664,257 added to its tax base. It will mean residents will pay more because their properties are worth so much more. That may not be something taxpayers want to hear, with inflation at an all-time high, gas prices averaging around $5.00 per gallon and grocery bills skyrocketing. The Fort Myers Beach town council is also considering raising its millage rate from .95 per $1,000 of assessed property value to .99 which would add another $660,000 to the town’s budget.
The value of properties on Sanibel shot up over 32% in the last year. In 2021 the final tax roll number on Sanibel was $6.5 billion. Lee County has estimated that number to be $8.6 billion in 2022. When the homestead and cap savings are calculated in, Sanibel will base its next fiscal budget on properties valued at $6.3 billion, up from the total taxable final figure of $5.6 billion in 2021.
Correction: an earlier version of this story noted that the $539,664,257 would be added to the town budget. We corrected that to state that amount will be added to the tax base to calculate the final town budget.
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