Milage, Budgets, and some Valuable Trigg Information

Milage seems like it is a little outdated.

I want to start by trying to define Milage, which is something Preston Trigg talked to us about in our most recent visit. It is very complicated, and I believe there could be better systems, but here it goes…

Milage is a formula for determining the amount of taxable property value that the government can charge you taxes on. Pheww… Now let’s get to the specifics.

Milage has to do with property taxes, and how much you can be taxed on based on the value of your home. A “mil” is equal to 1/1000th, and a “mil” is equal to $1000 of property taxes. Based on the value of your home, the government sets how many mils you can be taxed on.

Now, if I haven’t killed my readership by defining that, we can move on.

Trigg has visited us before, and the thing that amazes me the most about him is his mindset towards his job. Trigg works for the Hillsborough County Tax Collector’s Office, but he doesn’t come off as someone working for a government agency.

Trigg comes to us with a reporter’s mindset, which is a great learning tool for us. As reporters, we will be dealing with people and offices like Trigg and the Hillsborough County Tax Collector. The way he describes things to us, is advice from a reporter, but with an insider’s perspective.

He tells us all the different hoops we will have to jump through to get what we want and he always tells us little tips to look for when investigating something. I have taken a lot out of his two visits.

He came to talk to us about budgets, and what to look for such as what increases in the budget could be suspect. Trigg broke down a budget into three simple areas Personnel, Capital and Operating.

Personnel includes salaries, benefits and costs related to having a staff.

Capital purchases are usually over $1,000 and include large expenses for companies (keep an eye out for these expenses).

The last part is the operating budget. This usually includes utilities, leases, education, travel and food costs. Pretty much anything that is required to OPERATE the company. This is another area to keep an eye on.

Learning how to read and understand a companies budget is a very useful and valuable skillset, and I am glad we got the opportunity to learn it from a “former” journalist.