Issue to watch 2018: Budget

The County Commission begins 2018 with a challenge:  cut enough from department budgets to head off an anticipated deficit.

In rejecting a higher property-tax rate and a tax on public utilities in 2017, commissioners left themselves with a recurring balance of more than $11 million to account for each year, if revenue remains flat.

When budget deliberations began in June, County Administrator Tom Harmer and his staff proposed a slight increase to property tax rates, and a new 5% tax on public utilities for residents in unincorporated areas. Both were rejected, and commissioners used money from the county's economic uncertainty fund to bridge the gap.

“Without [raising taxes], we’re really running this county very, very thin,” commissioner Charles Hines said. “As we go forward ... this is going to be very, very difficult.”

“We voted against an increase in revenue. We have to start looking at what we can’t do this year"

Commissioner Nancy Detert, the board’s chair in 2018, agreed with Hines, and mentioned that property taxes haven’t been raised in Sarasota County for 17 years. The current millage rate is 3.2128 — that’s $642.56 for a property with $200,000 of taxable value. 

“We voted against an increase in revenue,” she said. “We have to start looking at what we can’t do this year.”

Commissioners have asked 12 departments to cut 11.6% from their budgets in a process that begins Jan. 31 and must be done by October, when the next fiscal year begins. With this request, commissioners are actually seeking $14 million in cuts, though they will not likely approve all of them.

Commissioners are already feeling the strains of a tight budget.

In a discussion about an after-action review for Hurricane Irma: “I’m just not interested in paying a consultant to tell us what we did right or wrong,” Detert said at an Oct. 11 commission meeting. “If you all have the time and money, you’re on a different planet than me, frankly.”

In deciding whether to spend $500,000 to add parking to an empty lot on the Key in December:

“This would be something that would be a no-brainer for us on a good day, but we’re still trying to make up our deficit,” Detert said.