Paid city parking hours extended and fines for violations increased

As an enterprise fund, the city of Sarasota’s Parking Division is intended to cover its own expenses. Efforts so far to raise revenue and reduce expenses such as adding paid street parking at Lido Beach and gateless entry and exit at city garages still left the fund short on the balance sheet, placing the financial burden on the citywide tax base rather than the users.

Resistant to an increase in parking fees, the Sarasota City Commission on May 4 unanimously approved extending parking enforcement hours in city-owned spaces and adding $5 to all current citation rates except ADA violations, which will remain at $250. 

Effective June 1, 2026, city-owned parking garages and surface lots will extend parking enforcement 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Enforcement on paid on-street parking spaces will extend to 8 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week. 

Parking will remain free over 10 holidays plus the day before Thanksgiving and the days before and after Christmas.

The holidays include:

• New Year’s Day
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
• President's Day
• Memorial Day
• Juneteenth
• Independence Day
• Labor Day
• Veteran's Day
• Thanksgiving Day
• Christmas Day

Those changes, Parking Division General Manager Broxton Harvey told commissioners, will allow the department to operate in the black as early as fiscal year 2027.

This fiscal year, parking is projected at a net loss of approximately $270,000 with $6.5 million in expenses versus $6.2 million in revenue. The changes, Harvey said, will bring in $9.4 million against expenses of $8.8 million — the cost increase a result of capital expenses for equipment — for a projected net surplus of $674,797.

“And just to confirm, these expenditures do cover capital expenses such as the replacement of elevators, the replacement of meters on the street, and also a contingency for the Parking Division,” Harvey said.

The proposal also directs funds to the Bay Runner trolley, which is currently largely funded by the city’s Economic Development Fund at about $970,000 per year.

“This proposal proposes to take over those costs so that we can have some money, finally, in the Economic Development Fund to help our small businesses. This is a step toward that effort, correct?” asked Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch, which Harvey confirmed.

The changes will also allow the Parking Division to pay down its borrowing from the city’s general fund “at a faster pace,” Harvey said.