- May 4, 2024
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With an anticipated 13.2% gain in revenue driven by a meteoric rise in assessed property values over the past year — combined with no mention of adjusting the millage rate to approach or achieve a revenue neutral budget — many Sarasota County government departments and agencies are eyeing a hiring spree in fiscal year 2023.
The Sarasota County Commission held its two-day budget workshop last week, listening to the funding pitches of departments and agencies, most of which included the addition of full-time equivalent staff to refill COVID-related reductions and to fill new positions needed to keep pace with the county’s projected explosive population growth.
According to the Bureau of Economic Research, Florida Population Studies, the county's population is projected to increase from 433,300 in 2020 to 464,900 by 2025, and to 489,600 by 2030.
More people means higher expenditures. An op-ed piece written by outgoing County Commission Chair Al Maio suggests the county’s millage rate of 3.46% will remain unchanged.
“Sarasota County has continuously found ways to do more with less and has not pursued a millage rate increase in 23 years,” Maio wrote. “And, once again, the proposed fiscal year 2023 budget for Sarasota County does not include a millage increase.
“In fact, our current millage rate is the second lowest of the 67 counties in the state of Florida, which is even more important because it took over a decade — from 2008 to 2020 — for our gross taxable property values to recover after plummeting nearly 38% during the great recession. Sarasota County has remained focused on our financial priorities related for maintaining a very high level of service despite the ups and downs of the housing market.”
The ad valorem tax increase increments property owners will pay will not be equivalent, percentage-wise, to their corresponding increase in tax value assessments. By Florida statute, homestead property values are capped at 3% percent growth on their property tax bills, and non-homestead property taxes at 10%. In both cases, though, taxable values are expected to hit the top marks.
New construction or the owners of newly resold properties will pay the full value unless they bring with them portable elements of the state's homestead exemption.
“The total expenditure budgets of departments controlled by county commissioners have increased by just 4% from 2009 to 2022, from $127.5 million to $132.7 million,” Maio wrote. “If the board’s departments had increased their expenditures by the annual inflation rate, their 2022 expenditure budgets would have been exceeded by $31 million.”
Maintaining the current millage rate, County Administrator Jonathan Lewis has proposed a 2023 general fund budget of $378.2 million, a 10.7% increase.
Although the final numbers from the tax appraiser’s office aren’t due until July 1, preliminary figures suggest the county’s property tax revenues will swell to $267.87 million, up 14% from $230.4 million this fiscal year. That revenue growth reflects the preliminary appraised value of real estate countywide of $81.8 billion, up 14.1% over the current fiscal year’s $70.2 billion.
Combined, county departments are looking to parlay the resulting bump in revenue into 81.4 new full-time equivalent employees, a personnel growth of 3.4%. The county’s current headcount is 2,375, which doesn’t include constitutional departments and agencies. Combined, those are seeking 35 new positions, led by the Sheriff’s Office’s ask for 19 new positions that would bring its headcount to 1,036, a 1.9% increase over fiscal 2022.
Filling those openings won’t be easy without raising compensation as hiring in both the public and private sectors remains a post-pandemic challenge. Commissioner Nancy Detert sounded that alarm during Thursday’s opening session.
“We have very low unemployment. It's hard to find workers. Every employer will tell you that, so it's going be more competitive,” Detert said. “I think we really need to think a little higher when it comes to salaries. It’s going to be harder and harder to find supremely qualified people that we currently and historically have who that want to work for wages that are lower than competitive wages.”
Lewis said he began addressing the compensation issue during the current fiscal year. Above and beyond the 1% pay plan adjustment and then up to a 3% merit base, Lewis made an additional 1% pay plan adjustment during the spring.
“And we raised starting pay,” he said of the increase of the minimum wage to $15 per hour. “We just we weren't competitive. And as the board knows, we've been in discussion with the ATU, which is our transit union, on what their base pay would be for drivers and attendants and other positions. … That’s why instead of that possible 4%, it’s a little bit higher at 6% this year for our non-(collective) bargaining employees. We continue to look at it we'll certainly adjust within budget parameters. It's a tough one to balance.”
During his presentation, Sheriff Kurt Hoffman described recruiting and retention challenges his department face against agencies near and far that offer higher wages and perhaps a lower cost of living. One officer is leaving, he said, because the new ownership of his apartment complex raised the rent by nearly $900 a month and he and his family can no longer afford to live here.
“I had a 19-year corrections deputy who retired early and moved out of state to take another job because of cost of living in Sarasota County,” Hoffmnan said. “I had a conversation with somebody who's talking to someone who wants to come work here in Sarasota County and they're going to be making significantly less than what they are in the jurisdiction that they're in now.”
A civilian staff member, he added, is regularly going to a food bank in order to be able to save money to pay some college tuition bills.
“You ask for college degrees, you ask for the technical expertise whether it's digital forensics or drug lab or crime analyst, and then you have to be able to pay them,” Hoffman said.
To address compensation, Lewis is proposing a general wage increase among all non-collective bargaining employees of about 5.5% to 6%.
“I’m playing with scenarios, depending on how the budget works out, of a 4% merit this year with some variation of the 2% pay plan adjustment which is might be 1% in the beginning of the year and 1% halfway through the year,” Lewis said. “That’s what I'm looking at and what's factored in here.”
