Preliminary Sarasota County budget shows 4% spending increase

With a watchful eye toward potential future slowdowns in property tax revenue growth, the Sarasota County Commission began its fiscal year 2026 budget process in earnest last week.

The commission held workshops on July 1 and 2 to receive and discuss the proposed budget prepared by County Administrator Jonathan Lewis and staff, a $507.1 million county operations spending plan as part of a proposed $2.5 billion budget.

During its July 8 regular meeting, the commission set the maximum millage rate for next fiscal year at 3.2273 mils, a reduction of .05% from the current fiscal year.

“The budget is predicated no new revenue sources for existing services as well as a flat county millage rate, except for fluctuations due to the voter-approved legacy debt, so at this point, that's how it is built,” Lewis told commissioners.

The general fund revenue is based on the newly released final countywide property valuation, which indicates a 5.6% increase in residential and commercial tax values. That projects approximately $353.6 million in revenue over the current fiscal year, a $15.7 million increase. The total value of all properties across the county, according to the Property Appraiser office, is $103.5 billion, 

That gain, though, is partially offset by decreases in other revenue sources.

“You will also see a lot of your state revenue-related things — half-cent sales tax, state revenue sharing and others — we are seeing some decreases in those so we're being conservative in budgeting in the next year,” said Financial Management Director Kim Radtke.

Those projected declines include $1.45 million, or 3.0%, in half-cent sales tax; $912,000 (5.3%) in state revenue sharing; $2.54 million (4.2%) in Infrastructure Sales Surtax; and $2.6 million (19.2%) in mobility fees.

With uncertainty surrounding the economic outlook and future revenues, Commissioner Tom Knight suggested the county re-examine its budget approach, stopping short of a zero-based budgeting process, which would keep commissioners and staff working all summer.

“We're in a healthy economy, the housing values are down. A lot of things are going up naturally that we can't control,” Knight said. “What does our future look like with the growth of our county? What our general fund is responsible for? Things like that. I would like to see what that future looks like, what our options are as we build out our budgets because I don't think there'll be a whole lot of citizen support for pushing millage rates up. 

“It doesn't mean we want to change, but certainly we don't want to sit back and not miss an opportunity to review different ways to do our business.”

One way business is currently done is projecting anticipated new revenue to compensate for anticipated deficits, and budgeting low for revenue and high for expenses. The bottom line shows a possible $23 million shortfall for the next fiscal year. 

“We're expecting $14 million of additional revenue,” said Chief Financial Management Officer Steve Bothelo as he changed a presentation side. “It's really just showing based on that $13.9 million of new money, if everyone had to stay within their proportionate share, that’s what their increases would be. But we show what the actual ask is, and then the difference, and that's the $23 million.”

Partially driving the spending increase for the next fiscal year is more than 100 new full-time equivalent positions. That includes 108.8 FTEs for departments under control of the County Commission and 44.57 new FTE’s requested by the constitutional officers. That would bring the total county employment to 4,151 full-time equivalents.