Sarasota citywide max property millage rate is set at 3.3

Taking heed of interim City Manager Dave Bullock’s assessment of the city’s precariously low general fund balance, the Sarasota City Commission on Tuesday voted 4-1 to set the maximum citywide property millage rate for fiscal year 2026 at 3.3.

An increase over the current year’s 3.0 mills, Bullock said, is needed to begin to rebuild the general fund balance which was severely depleted due to recovery costs already incurred, and costs still to come, from the 2024 hurricane season.

During the two-day budget workshop on July 28 and 29, Bullock told commissioners the general fund balance at the start of the next fiscal year is expected at approximately $18 million, or 14% of the proposed $108.37 million general fund spending plan. The city’s policy is to maintain that balance at 17% to 25%, enough money to fund operations for approximately three months in the event of natural disaster or other catastrophic emergency.

Bullock’s plan is to bank all the additional property tax revenue generated by the millage increase as part of a three-year plan to replenish the fund balance. His proposal was for a 0.273 increase in the fund balance, which he said would raise it to just more than $20 million by the end of the fiscal year. That assumes the city receives no additional FEMA reimbursements nor suffers any storm damage through the next fiscal year.

Vice Mayor Debbie Trice cast the lone dissenting vote, preferring the commission set the max millage rate at Bullock’s recommendation of 3.273 mills. Between now and final budget adoption, scheduled for Sept. 15, the commission may lower the millage rate, but cannot increase it. 

“I was prepared to accept a higher number today with the belief that we would bring it down to 3.273 before September, but I'm getting a sense that there will be leaning in the commission to keep it at that 3.3 so I'm going to vote against the motion,” Trice said of Commissioner Kathy Kelley Ohlrich's motion. “I appreciate what you're trying to do. I just won't support it.”

The impact of a millage increase to 3.3 on a home with an assessed taxable value of $200,000 is $60 per year, on a $350,000 home $105, on a $500,000 home $150 and on a $1 million home $300, all marginally less at 3.273 mills.

A millage rate at then 3.5 combined with an overall increase of 6.5% in citywide property tax value would have captured just more than $6.1 million to place in the fund balance, $1.4 million more than the $4.7 million projected by 3.273. That data supports a position floated earlier by Ahearn-Koch to capture more revenue earlier with the opportunity to lower the millage rate in succeeding years. 

There was no appetite among the commission, though, to set the maximum any higher than 3.3 mills. 

“I don't think any of us want to raise the millage,” said Ahearn-Koch, “but when somebody with the experience of our city manager comes in with this recommendation, you've got to heed that warning, and if we set it at a maximum of 3.3 it does give some space (between now and budget adoption) for things may come up.”