LARGO -- Tuesday's Largo City Commission workshop was enough to give the most enthusiastic number cruncher an eyes glaze over experience, except for a couple of numbers that leapt out of the records.
Those are the numbers that relate to future tax increases.
The commission basically heard two reports Tuesday. The first was review of the Community Development Block Grant plan for fiscal years 2005-2009, even though the program, federally funded, faces a questionable future in Congress.
One interesting aspect of the review brought high dudgeon from Commissioner Pat Gerard who noted that there was no funding noted for homelessness even though, she said, the commission had specifically requested that such funding be included.
The other report was an update of the long term financial plan in which Kim Adams, the city's financial guru, put together a future picture of city finances.
That picture looked good with reasonable acceptance of figures that yet have no reality.
The numbers that jumped out and may be very realistic to Largo taxpayers were future millage rates.
Currently, the city rate is at 4.75 mills, having jumped up two years ago after a dozen years or so of no millage increases at all.
The future shows an increase to 5.25 in 2008 and 5.50 in 2009.
Property values are expected to go up about 15 percent in Pinellas County in 2006 but are expected to well less than half of that in future years, thus requiring the millage increases.
But none of it is official yet, and Adams clearly indicated he was in the position of reading the entrails of a goat with the best figures he had available.