Lauderhill cuts hefty fire fees

The hefty fire assessment fees Lauderhill charged small group homes this year seemed outrageous to their operators. Now the city agrees.

Commissioners this month scaled back the fees after city officials found they were at odds with state law. The city was charging the group homes thousands of dollars too much, which threatened to put them out of business.

Adina Harris was assessed a $10,330 fire fee for her six-occupant Divinity group home in the city. Under the change approved this month, Harris will have to pay the same $388 charged to single-family homes in her neighborhood — a savings of almost $10,000.

“I am relieved, I have to tell you,”

City officials agree that small group homes should pay the same amount as single-family units.

Harris said. “It has been harrowing.”

Harris said she has already lost money because she could not pay her tax bill in November, when she would have been eligible for a 4 percent discount. And she may still be out the $6,500 she had to pay last year when the city first increased the fee for group homes.

“When I went out and s p o ke to t h e m, they wouldn’t even listen to me last year,” Harris said.

The city put group homes, assisted living facilities and nursing homes in the same category last year and greatly increased their rates. Most of the facilities were looking at about a 58 percent increases this year above last year’s already high prices.

But Florida law says community residential homes with six or fewer residents are “deemed a single-family unit and a noncommercial, residential use for the purpose of local laws and ordinances.”

Finance Director Kennie Hobbs estimated the city will lose $143,130 in revenue because of the decreased charge to the smaller group homes. That came from a review of 17 group homes in the city. Each of those will receive a reduction of between $4,125 and $12,029, according to the city analysis, lowering them to the $388 single-family rate.

The impact on the city could be greater. The Divinity group home Harris owns was not listed on the city analysis, meaning her almost $10,000 in savings — and possibly that of other small group homes — was not calculated by the city.

The higher assessments haven’t been changed for the larger facilities in the nursing home category, but Hobbs told commissioners that staff is doing an assessment of their situation as well.

Andre Parke, an attorney representing a coalition of assisted living facilities in the area, wants to see those pro per t i e s c harg e d t he same as any other institutional property, not the higher rate assessed nursing homes.

Under the city’s institutional rate, a typical assisted-living facility paying $20,400 would only owe $5,557.

“We’ve tried to show them their assessments are too high and we’ve appealed them,” Parke said.