The Gainesville City Commission decided to keep exempting charities and religious institutions from its annual fire assessment, but commissioners said the city should get credit for subsidizing these organizations.

At Thursday’s General Policy Committee, the commissioners voted to amend its language for the fire assessment to match Florida statute, following state-level changes that add scientific and literary to the charitable and religious exemptions. Those scientific and literary exemptions apply to entities owned by a nonprofit.

Commissioner James Ingle started the discussion around changing the city’s fire assessment exemptions in June 2025 before tabling the item to return before the next budget season.

Overall, Gainesville exempts $511,000 from these organizations. Gainesville Fire Rescue Chief Joseph Hillhouse said they expect the number to stay the same after matching state statute, since the tax collector already adds those entities to the exempt list.

He added that government entities with offices inside city limits—like Alachua County, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the Florida Highway Patrol—can choose not to pay the fire assessment. Hillhouse said the city doesn’t even send those assessments but estimated that they would total $2 million if paid.

According to the presentation, there are around 259 organizations currently exempt from the fire assessment, not including government entities.

Hillhouse said Florida law allows Gainesville to levy the assessment against the organizations, and his presentation showed that Fort Myers, Lakeland, Ocala and Alachua County don’t provide exemptions. Meanwhile, he said Tallahassee only exempts religious institutions but not the charitable, literary or scientific ones.

To follow Tallahassee, Hillhouse said the city would need to organize and file the exemptions itself instead of relying on the tax collector. That would bring more staff time and the possibility of errors.

Commissioner Casey Willits said he didn’t realize Gainesville was the outlier concerning the fire assessment.

He said the city certainly gets no credit for half a million dollars in subsidies to organizations like United Way of North Central Florida, St. Francis House, Peaceful Paths, the Salvation Army, the ARC of Alachua County and every church within city limits that owns its property.

The largest exempt organization is UF Health Shands Hospital at $50,000. Willits said he couldn’t convince UF Health officials to pay for a mental health counselor for gun violence, saying he was told the city could fund it.

Well, if UF Health pays the $50,000 fire assessment, Willits said, maybe the city could provide the funding for the counselor position.

Willits said during the city’s past budget cuts, the fire assessment exemptions were never brought forward as a savings, and he said half a million could make a difference. Ingle said he’d also be interested in looking at ending the exemption. But he’d want to give nonprofits a sizeable notice and said it wouldn’t be for this budget season.

The city could also choose to give a flat discount on the fire assessment, letting organizations pay $100, $1,000 or $5,000 off the full amount.

Mayor Harvey Ward said he thinks the $500,000 subsidization is an important point that the community is entirely unaware of. He said he’d like the city to go through the extra expense of sending letters to those nonprofits as a reminder of how much they’re saving.

The updated language to match state law will return at a future meeting, but any substantive changes to the exemption process will rely on a commission returning to the topic down the line.

10 organizations with largest fire assessment exemption in 2025:

• UF Health Shands: $51,687.70
• Trinity United Methodist Church: $20,065.03
• Holy Faith Catholic Church: $11,170.53
• Ignite Life Center: $10,888.38
• YMCA of North Central Florida: $10,810.71
• First United Methodist Church: $10,443.55
• LifeSouth Community Blood Centers: $10,305.62
• First Presbyterian Church: $8,455.97
• Mt. Carmel Baptist Church: $8,404.89
• Holy Trinity Episcopal Church: $7,690.52