Sources & Methodology

City of DeFuniak Springs fire assessment roll

The City's parcel-level assessment roll at the final adopted rates. This is the source for per-parcel fee amounts, the count of homes newly billed, and the count of homes where the fee exceeds their current city tax bill.

Final adopted rates

$238.00 per dwelling unit (single-family and multi-family), $0.15/sq ft commercial (capped at 52,500 sq ft), $0.02/sq ft industrial/warehouse, $0.38/sq ft institutional, and $69.00 per vacant parcel. The assessment collects $1,030,601 citywide, roughly a 45% increase over the $2,309,263 the City collects in property taxes.

City millage levy

5.5 mills, generating $2,309,263 in current city property tax revenue. Used to calculate each property's current city tax bill (taxable value ÷ 1,000 × 5.5).

Walton County fire assessment

$75.00 per year, the county's current residential fire assessment rate, used as the comparison figure throughout this site. The county's noticed ceiling is $150, set so the county would not have to re-notice property owners for a future change; the actual rate has remained $75 for roughly a decade and the ceiling has never been charged.

DeFuniak Springs Fire Department 5-Year and 10-Year Plan (November 2025)

The City's own plan for fire department spending: station repairs and upgrades ($300,000 to $1,400,000), a new fire engine ($935,000), a ladder truck with equipment ($1,850,000), a new $5,000,000 fire station south of I-10, and four additional firefighters. The plan assumes major purchases are financed; its own financing examples use 6% interest over terms up to 15 years. This is the spending the assessment is built to fund, and why the rate is designed to rise over time.

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City of DeFuniak Springs FY 2025-26 Adopted Budget

Fire Department budget, General Fund 522 (pages 36-39): $1,905,031 in total expenses, including $1,578,619 in personnel costs ($891,415 regular salaries, $325,321 retirement, $152,376 health insurance, $72,589 payroll taxes, $42,916 workers comp). Source for the payroll figures in the What the Plan Really Costs section.

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City financing worksheet behind the assessment study (Fire 5-10 NAVA, Option C)

The City's own cost worksheet, whose Option C scenario (covering the entire cost of fire services) was used to justify the assessment. It projects the loan payments used on the What the Plan Really Costs page: $94,680.72 a year for each fire engine on 15-year notes (R405 starting 2027, R406 in 2038, R4 in 2040), $187,336.20 a year for the ladder truck on a 15-year note starting 2031, and $286,449 a year for each fire station on 30-year notes (south station 2031, replacement station 2042), plus additional personnel with 3% yearly raises. Option C totals about $143.15 million in fire service costs from 2027 through 2050. Public record, available from the City on request.

Fire Assessment Program presentation (Accenture, 2025), City agenda item 2.A

The consultant presentation the assessment is built on. Slide 7, 'Cost Apportionment: Fire Protection Call Data, Calendar Year 2025': of 2,256 total calls, 1,764 (78%) were EMS calls, 215 were non-specific, and 277 (12%) were fire calls. Slide 6 splits the budget Fire 80.72% / EMS 19.28% and cites SMM Properties, Inc. v. City of North Lauderdale (Fla.), which held that EMS does not provide a 'special benefit' to property, the legal reason EMS costs had to be removed from the fee's assessable budget. The resulting 5-year average assessable cost of $2,228,850 includes the Option B expansion plan: a new fire engine, additional personnel starting 2027, station renovations in 2026, a new ladder truck in 2030, and a new station in 2030, with 5% annual personnel and 3% annual operating increases. Public record, available from the City on request.

City Council meeting video, July 13, 2026

The public meeting where the assessment rates were set. The Council adopted a preliminary ceiling of $397 per dwelling unit (the 100% rate) and started at 60%, which is the $238 rate. On the record: rates were set high because they can be lowered but not raised without restarting the process (1:11); a council member explained the city should not be penalized 5, 10, or 20 years down the road 'because at some point that cost may have to increase' (1:15); and a rate resolution is adopted every single year, which is the mechanism for future increases (1:25). The quotes on the What the Plan Really Costs page link to their exact moments in the video.

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Parcel lookup tool

The "Look Up Your Exact Bill" search on the homepage draws its results, record for record, from the same City parcel-level fire assessment roll, which is a public record. No additional calculation is applied to the tax and fee figures it displays.