Sarasota County sounds early warning of coming budget deficits

By the time fiscal year 2028 arrives, Sarasota County could be facing a $25.22 million deficit according to budget projections provided to the County Commission by staff. 

Based on current spending increases year over year, the inevitable deceleration of assessed property value increases and the county’s lack of control over elected and constitutional officer budgeting — which are approved at the state level but financially supported locally — the county is faced with two options: eventually raise property taxes or cut spending.

That is dependent on what commission Chairman Joe Neunder warned at the commission’s fifth budget workshop on Aug. 19 is an inevitable statewide referendum in November 2026 on reducing or eliminating property tax altogether. The grinding continues on how those revenues might be replaced as part of the plan.

Neunder told commissioners he recently attended a state Republican Party Committee meeting and warned that referendum is being developed.

“I attended my other elected job in Orlando, and we had a caucus with the State Committee and the sausage is still being made,” Neunder said. “We don't know what that's going to look like, but make no mistake, that will be on the ballot, and I think it would be prudent for us to keep that very top of mind. Obviously, it's not going to affect this budget or the next budget, but the following budget it will.”

All that set the stage for the workshop during which, at the outset, commissioners voted unanimously to approve adjusting the usual budget season schedule to involve earlier in the process the constitutional officers. 

Two constitutional officers’ budgets in particular drew surprise from commissioners: Tax Collector Mike Moran, who initially proposed increasing his budget by 27%, and Sheriff Kurt Hoffman, who proposed increasing his budget by 9.4%.

Knowing sooner their budget plans will help set the tone for the portion of the budget — the general fund — that commissioners do control as they provide preliminary spending plan guidance to County Administrator Jonathan Lewis and staff.

Freshman Commissioner Tom Knight, made that motion who, as the former Sarasota County Sheriff, is lone among his colleagues in having an experienced budget season from both sides of the dais. 

“The future is unknown. I think that's fair to say,” Knight said. “I would say that by February that we start our first round of conversations … and we invite the constitutionals to come in and talk to us about the future of what their budgets look like and some of the things that are going to happen to us.”

The commission has already received a clear signal from Moran, a former county commissioner, that the county should expect to not receive the $18 million to $20 million the office has annually remitted to the county. As a county commissioner, he argued with former long-time Tax Collector Barbara Ford-Coates, whom he defeated in the 2024 election, that the office was over-collecting fees from customers for its services who unfairly bear the burden for helping the county balance its budget.

The Tax Collector Office is committed to remitting approximately $18 million to the county coffers for fiscal year 2026, but not likely beyond.

Contributing to the angst over future balanced budgeting are projected tax values. Final values for next fiscal year was a 5.86% increase over the year prior, well short of the state's estimate of 6.5% on which the preliminary general fund budget was based, as were budget projections through 2030.

State estimates of taxable value increases for the next five years are:

• Fiscal year 2027: 4.3%.
• Fiscal year 2028: 5.3%.
• Fiscal year 2029: 6.1%.
• Fiscal year 2030: 6.3%.
• Fiscal year 2031: 6.2%.

“Moving forward from (fiscal years) 26 through 30, those are going to change,” said Chief Financial Officer Steve Bothello. “As (Neunder) mentioned, based on property tax reform, 2028 forward might look different as well.”

Freshman Commissioner Teresa Mast, whose District 1 includes much of the city of Sarasota, said she has no appetite to consider millage rate increases to the level that would balance future budgets. 

Then she took the temperature of the room.

“We can either be the thermometer or we can be the thermostat,” Mast said. “Thermometer, you just read the room temperature when you walk into it. Thermostat is when you set it. You say, 'this is what we're going to be,' so you dictate how that's going to occur. When we go through a budget there are three things that can occur: increase your tax base, reduce expenditures or increase millage rate. I'm not interested at all in increasing our millage rate.”

Commissioner Ron Cutsinger — who as the longest-tenured commissioner has seen both the early budgetary impacts from COVID-19 to the rapid revenue increases from tax base growth that soon followed — cautioned that for now the commission is only discussion reduction in the rate of spending increases. Given the most recent projections, greater challenges lie ahead, and all departments, including the constitutionals, need to be aware.

“It's very clear to me, from everything I'm hearing, seeing and watching that we've got some cuts coming because the legislature has been very serious about probably doubling the homestead exemptions,” Cutsinger said. “We're going to be facing some serious decisions and everybody needs to get on board and help us.”