HILLSBOROUGH -- The Orange County commissioners have agreed to lower the property tax rate so it raises the same amount of revenue as this year.

But that's not going to help homeowners as much as the commissioners thought.

The board learned Tuesday that the "revenue-neutral" tax rate they had been promising to offset revaluations is not the same as a "tax-neutral" rate.

That's because staff anticipate a shortfall of $6.3 million in motor vehicle, public utilities and personal property taxes next fiscal year, and the county needs to replace that money with real-estate taxes in order to generate the same revenue as last year.

The county's current tax rate is 99.8 cents per $100 of assessed property value.

With a projected revenue-neutral tax rate of 86 cents per $100 of assessed value, more than 80 percent of Orange County property owners would still see higher tax bills.

"It's revenue-neutral for the county, but it doesn't mean it's going to be revenue-neutral for the citizens," Commissioner Barry Jacobs said. "I actually thought I was accomplishing something for people. Even by being revenue-neutral, the majority of people are going to have a tax increase, even though we said we didn't want a tax increase. That doesn't really address their concern adequately."

The commissioners asked County Manager Laura Blackmon to recommend a fiscal 2009-10 budget that limits the tax rate to 86 cents and to provide a list of potential places to trim the budget even further.

Commissioner Steve Yuhasz wanted Blackmon to shoot for an even lower target.

"Where the people who are paying the bills have to spend less money, then we have to work real hard to spend less money," he said. "It may be that you wait 20 minutes as opposed to 12 minutes to receive service. That just may be the cost of the current situation."

But Blackmon said service cuts are going to happen anyway because of an $8.7 million budget gap due to falling sales taxes and new debt from building county facilities.

"We are going to spend less, no matter what the tax rate is going to be," Commissioner Bernadette Pelissier said.

The commissioners were especially concerned about taxpayers whose property values increased more than 40 percent. That group of about 5,000 makes up about 11 percent of tax bills. The commissioners want to encourage them to review their assessments with county staff to make sure they're accurate.

"Can we stand outside on the street and hand out balloons or something?" Jacobs asked.

Eventually, the commissioners agreed to mail letters to those 5,000-plus property owners advising them on how to appeal.

"If that costs us an average of 35 cents apiece then that's not a big investment to help us get less money," Jacobs joked.

Coming Wednesday: Potential budget cuts.