County Commission approves related budget adjustment, per Department of Revenue decision
With a state office having announced higher salaries for this fiscal year for not only county commissioners but also for county constitutional officers, Sarasota County Tax Collector Mike Moran won approval from the Florida Department of Revenue for a $7,083 raise.
Population data is used to determine the salaries, with Sarasota in the category of counties with residents numbering between 400,000 and 999,999, as shown in documents produced by the state Office of Economic and Demographic Research.
The new salary schedules were released on Oct. 6, as noted on the website of the Office of Economic & Demographic Research. The final Sarasota County budget hearing for this fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, had been held on Sept. 24.
The County Commission formally agreed to Moran’s raise by voting unanimously on Nov. 5 to approve its Consent Agenda of routine business matters. The board members typically do not offer comments on the Consent Agenda items, unless one of the commissioners has pulled an item for discussion.
Moran, who was elected tax collector in November 2024, has made clear in correspondence to the County Commission that the Department of Revenue is the authority that approves or amends his annual budgets; the commissioners have no say in the matter.
A copy of a Sept. 30 letter was included in the Nov 5 County Commission agenda packet in regard to Moran’s salary budget adjustment; it had been sent to him by Holly Russell, budget manager for the Florida Department of Revenue.
Russell wrote, “In accordance with section 195.087 [of the] Florida Statutes, the Department of Revenue (Department) has reviewed your budget request for your office’s operation for October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2026. The Department has made necessary changes to the Fiscal Year 2025-26 budget based on the review of additional information or testimony that you may have presented.”
A chart attached to that letter shows that the initial request for “Total Expenditures” for the 2025-26 fiscal year for Moran’s office was $14,970,027. Then, another column showed the amount approved for FY 2025-26 for the expenditures was $14,977,110. The difference is the $7,083 bump in pay that the commissioners approved for Moran on Nov. 5, in accord with the Department of Revenue direction.
The appropriations in that chart are divided among “Personnel Services,” “Operating Expenses,” and “Operating Capital Outlay.”
The change was shown in the line for “Personnel Services.”
The county’s Office of Financial Management staff pointed out the two line item changes to the Sarasota News Leader after the publication inquired about the budget amendment following the commission action.
However, the staff recommended that the News Leader contact the Tax Collector’s Office to determine the reason for the changes.
In response to the News Leader inquiry to the Tax Collector’s Office, Danielle Frazier, a CPA who is the deputy tax collector for financial management, wrote that the extra $7,083 “relates to the Tax Collector’s salary, benefits and retirement as outlined below.”
Then Frazier explained, “The DOR [Department of Revenue] receives the finalized salary figures from the Office of Economic and Demographic Research for elected constitutional officers every year around September and they adjust our budget to reflect the Tax Collector’s updated salary with corresponding changes to FICA and retirement every year. Sometimes they get the new figures before they approve the budget (as they did this year) and manually adjust it for us prior to their final approval, and other times they initiate a Budget Amendment for us to adjust the Tax Collector’s salary and benefits at the beginning of the fiscal year (as they did last fiscal year).”