Commissioners direct county staff to work on much smaller budget increases in future years, with concerns about loss of property tax revenue
Although two of the Sarasota County constitutional officers — Sheriff Kurt A. Hoffman and Supervisor of Elections Ron Turner — ended up paring money from their 2026 fiscal year budget requests — the county commissioners agreed this week that they will begin their annual budget process earlier next year, with emphasis on preparations for much lower increases in spending for Fiscal Year 2027 and beyond.
County Administrator Jonathan Lewis suggested during the board’s Aug. 19 budget workshop that the commissioners could hold a meeting with the constitutional officers in February or March, instead of waiting to hear about their proposed budgets in late June or early July, as has been the practice for at least 20 years.
After immediately announcing his agreement with the idea, Commissioner Tom Knight made a motion to “invite the constitutionals to come in and talk with us” in February 2026.
Commissioner Teresa Mast seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously.
“I think it’s vital to the conversation [about future county spending],” Mast said. “I don’t think things are going to get any easier,” she continued. “They’re going to become even more complicated …”
Chair Joe Neunder pointed out that he had talked with county staff members about the anticipation that state leaders will end up placing a referendum on the November 2026 General Election ballot related to reducing property taxes, which are local governments’ primary mechanism to pay for services to the public. In fact, Neunder called the referendum “a guarantee.”
Earlier this summer, he indicated, he attended a meeting of local government leaders in Orlando, which featured a caucus with the members of the committee that legislative leaders created this year to address the property tax issue. Gov. Ron DeSantis has advocated for property tax relief for Florida homeowners.
“I think it would be prudent … to keep that [referendum] top of mind as we move forward,” Neunder told his colleagues and county staff on Aug. 19.
With Neunder’s urging, the board members on Aug. 19 ended up voting unanimously, as well, to direct staff to work with lower increases in the county budgets for Fiscal Years 2027 through 2030. “Our taxpayers are counting on us to do the right things and have the conversations and transparency,” he pointed out.
Commissioner Mark Smith made the motion to allow no more than a 1.6% rise in the total budget for FY 2027; then, for Fiscal Years 2028 through 2030, the increase would be limited to 3.6%.
Those changes should make it possible for the county’s “rainy day” reserve fund to be brought back up to a level reflecting 60 days of operations, based on a slide shown to the board members.
County Administrator Lewis told the commissioners that he would send a memo to all of the constitutional officers about the board’s expectations regarding the budget caps for the next several fiscal years, as well as the plans for the February 2026 workshop with them.
Further on Aug. 19, the commissioners unanimously approved a $589,556 decrease in their spending for FY 2026. Instead, the Sarasota County School Board should pay the money, they said, based on information that former Commissioner Mike Moran, who was elected tax collector last year, had provided to Lewis.
Moran informed Lewis that he had discovered that the county for more than 20 years had been paying the commission to the Tax Collector’s Office for handling the School Board revenue derived from the voter-approved, special 1-mill property tax.
Lewis proposed on Aug. 19 that the shift of that payment to the School Board take place starting in the 2027 fiscal year, but Mast — who noted that she had talked with Moran — made the motion to begin the change in FY 2026.
“I’m not interested in continuing to pick up the tab,” Mast said, adding that the School Board could find the money to do so. “We are digging deep,” she stressed, in trying to trim the county’s spending.
Not as big a budget increase year-over-year as it would seem
One positive note from the workshop is the fact that the total county budget is going up about 8.4% for the 2026 fiscal year, instead of the 21.4% shown in materials provided in the agenda packet for the Aug. 19 workshop. The decrease is a result first of the staff of the Office of Financial Management’s factoring out a $201.5-million grant that the county received this year from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUYD) for responses to unmet needs following significant damage to the county during the 2024 storm season. That funding is the latest in what the county calls its Resilient SRQ Program.
Second, the revised budget uptick reflects the removal of other grant funds from the total, which added up to approximately $1.2 billion, County Administrator Lewis said.
Further, after what staff calls “double counts” were eliminated, that decreased the Capital Projects budget by $1.5 million, Kim Radtke, director of the Office of Financial Management said.
“Double counts” are figures reflecting money shown as revenue in one part of the budget and expenses planned for specific projects in another portion of the budget, Commissioner Ron Cutsinger indicated.
Additionally, as The Sarasota News Leader also reported last week, and Lewis noted on Aug. 19, the departments under control of the County Commission had reduced their overall spending by $500,000. A slide showed that the affected departments were Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources; Breeze Transit; and General Services.
Thus, the spending for all of the departments controlled by the County Commission will be up by 3.3% for the 2026 fiscal year, compared to the current budget, as Radtke pointed out.
Further, Sheriff Hoffman reduced the Sheriff’s Office budget by $2.4 million for FY 2026, and the county’s Court Administration staff lowered that office’s budget by $270,000. (See the related article in this issue.)
Additionally, Supervisor of Elections Turner appeared before the commissioners on Aug. 19 to announce that his financial team had been able to reduce his initial, proposed budget for FY 2026 by $98,000. That left his office’s increase at 2.72% for the new fiscal year, compared to the figure for the current fiscal year.
The new total for the Supervisor of Elections Office for FY 2026 was $9,745,087, as noted in the document Turner showed the board members.
However, it turns out that Turner’s staff had reduced the 2026 budget even more than Turner noted on Aug. 19, as the News Leader learned the following day.
When the publication requested a copy of the document that Turner had shown the commissioners, Tyson M. Pruitt, communications manager for the Elections Office, explained in an email, “After the presentation we realized there was a mathematical error and our proposed FY26 budget was $7,600 less than the number on the slide — resulting in a 2.64% increase instead of 2.72% [for FY 2026].”
The figure in the Aug. 19 document was $9,745,087. The revised figure, as noted in Pruitt’s new slide, is $9,737,476.
Delving into the budget gap issue
As the commissioners focused on General Fund projections for Fiscal Years 2026 through 2030, Deputy County Administrator and Chief Financial Management Officer Steve Botelho reminded them that the budget models are based on 20 years of data, including the fact that the county typically underspends by 6% and ends up collecting 4% more revenue each fiscal year than staff plans on when building the budgets.
Botelho then presented the commissioners a budget slide from July, which showed General Fund projections through the 2030 fiscal year. In FY 2028, the county would be facing a budget gap of $31,578,823; that would rise to $40,806,592 in FY 2029 before decreasing to $39,183,999 in the 2030 fiscal year.
Factoring in the changes in the budget since July while using the 6% figure for underspending and the 4% number for collecting revenue in excess of the total anticipated, gaps still were projected, though they were smaller:
Botelho emphasized that the county’s Disaster Reserve Fund would continue to hold enough money for 75 days of operations, if — for example — damage from a major hurricane was so severe that the county had no means of receiving income. The best practice in government budgeting nationwide is maintaining a 60-day disaster reserve, he added.
The county’s 75-day policy is a significant factor in the county’s continuing to receive high ratings from the major bond rating companies, Botelho told the board members.
County Administrator Lewis added that other counties have followed Sarasota County’s model for maintaining an Economic Uncertainty Reserve.
Even through the 2030 fiscal year, projections showed the county would have $5 million left in its Economic Uncertainty Reserve, which was created to provide up to an extra 60 days of operating funds.
The same slide also noted that staff had budgeted $42,474,191 out of the Economic Uncertainty Reserve to balance the FY 2026 budget.
In 2018, Lewis pointed out, in the wake of the Great Recession, the county had none of that reserve left, which necessitated cuts of recurring expenses.
Looking at the slide, Commissioner Knight noted, “We’re not sustainable,” budget-wise, given the trends for future years.
“You got it,” Lewis replied.
That was when Botelho noted that the board could limit the total rise in expenditures out of the General Fund to 1.6% for the 2027 fiscal year. (The General Fund’s largest source of revenue is property tax income. It contains other revenue, as well, such as funds shared by the state and a Florida Power & Light Co. annual franchise fee. The General Fund covers the expenses of county departments and constitutional officers’ operations that generate little to no revenue of their own.)
Then, for FY 2028 through FY 2030, the expenditure growth could be capped at 3.6%, Botelho said. That would eliminate all the budget gaps and start to build back up the Economic Uncertainty Reserve.
A chart showed, for example, that the change for FY 2027 would limit the Sheriff’s Office to no more than $3,798,705 in extra funding.
For all of the County Commission-controlled departments, the increase would be $2,737,485, the slide said.
In response to that information, Commissioner Mast told Botelho that, as she saw it, the commissioners “can either be the thermometer or the thermostat.” In other words, she explained, akin to how a thermostat is used, the commissioners could dictate how things would be done.
In budgeting, Mast continued, three things can occur: “You can increase your tax base, you reduce expenditures, or you increase [the] millage rate. I am not interested, at all, in increasing our millage rate.”
“Millage rates will never be a go for any of us,” Commissioner Knight said.
Mast did caution everyone, however, that county residents have certain expectations when it comes to the county’s levels of service in its departments.
She called the no-deficit scenario Botelho had presented a “status quo” plan.
“I think this is a very healthy conversation to have,” Commissioner Smith said. “I think it’s important that we meet with everybody early next year to accomplish this.”
“I agree with both those comments,” Commissioner Cutsinger added. “We’re talking about spending a little less,” he pointed out, referring to the outlying fiscal years. “We’re increasing, going forward. We’re not in a situation where we’re saying we’re in a crisis. … Believe me, I would much rather be managing ahead of time than managing during a crisis …”
He concurred with Chair Neunder that the commissioners are almost certain to be dealing with less property tax revenue in the future, thanks to state action and a referendum. “We’ve got to take a very serious approach and set expectations going forward. … Everybody needs to get on board to help us,” Cutsinger added, including the constitutional officers.
Referencing Mast’s earlier remark, Knight said, “I think the thermostat is set by some constitutionals not even having representation here.”
Before he made the motion to approve the proposed maximum budget increases for FY 2027 through FY 2030, Commissioner Smith did note that the constitutional officers might want to consider factors in their budgets for FY 2026 that they could put off until later years, “knowing that Fiscal Year ’27 is going to be a bit austere. They may want to voluntarily lower their number now …”
County Administrator Lewis pointed out that staff uses the state’s estimate for the property value increase, as well as details of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) of the prior fiscal year — prepared by the staff of the Office of the Sarasota County Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller — to build the next budget. Therefore, Lewis said, the model the commissioners were seeing on Aug. 19 for the outlying budget years could change, enabling them to agree to a slightly higher threshold for growth in FY 2027.
