Commissioners approve formal budget resolutions for initiatives
On Aug. 25, as they conducted their first regular meeting since their five-week summer break, the Sarasota County commissioners formally approved budget amendments for this fiscal year to take into account three North County stormwater projects at an expense of nearly $27 million.
They were as follows:
- A Bahia Vista initiative to “improve floodplain storage [and] stormwater conveyance, reduce the potential for localized flooding, and enhance the resilience of adjacent communities,” at an expense of $6,155,264, as explained in a county Capital Improvement Program (CIP) document.
- The retrofitting of the stormwater conveyance system and storage on St. Armands Circle “to restore the design storm … level of service and maintain evacuation access.” The total amount is $14,327,202, a county staff memo said, with “an anticipated contribution from the City of Sarasota” of $479,000. However, the memo pointed out, “If the City of Sarasota is unable to meet this funding contribution identified in the Resilient SRQ grant application, [the county] Stormwater [Department staff] would value engineer the project scope to align with available funding or bring the item back to the [County Commission] for additional funding.”
- A project in the Central Cell of the Celery Fields Regional Stormwater Facility that calls for the excavation of upland areas within that cell “to provide an additional 60 acre-feet of floodplain storage capacity that will reduce the floodplain by one-third of a foot in an approximately 1-mile radius from the Celery Fields site,” the relevant Aug. 25 county staff memo pointed out. The total budget is $6,397,000.
That cell, another county document said, is north of Palmer Boulevard.
All of the items were listed on the agenda as Presentations Upon Request, meaning that unless a member of the board had a question — or one or more members of the public had signed up to offer comments on them — the commissioners would make a motion for each and approve it. Implemented more than a decade ago, the process was designed to speed up the flow of meetings.
No board member asked for a presentation on any of the three Stormwater Department items, and no members of the public had signed up to speak during the hearings, Chair Ron Cutsinger told his colleagues.
Most of the funds for all three initiatives will come out of the nearly $210.1-million grant that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded the county in January 2025 to deal with unmet needs in the aftermath of that hurricane season. County staff manages those funds through what it calls the Resilient SRQ Program.
Although the Bahia Vista initiative was not discussed during the commission’s review of Resilient SRQ applications in November 2025, it is part of the “Infrastructure & Public Facilities” improvements, to which the board had allocated a total of $132,089,300.
The relevant county Capital Improvement Program (CIP) document explained that the Bahia Vista undertaking would use “an existing 4.7-acre County owned parcel combined with possible acquisition of another parcel. The reduction of existing structure flood protection level of service deficiencies as well as increased sediment capture and nutrient reduction are anticipated as a result of the Project.”
A chart in that document indicates that the work will be completed by the end of the 2028 fiscal year, which will be Sept. 30, 2028.
A map of the county parcel, which The Sarasota News Leader located in the records maintained by Sarasota County Property Appraiser Bill Furst and his staff, shows that the property stands south of Bahia Vista Street, between Honore Avenue and Cattlemen Road. The county has owned the land since March 2004, Furst’s records also note.
That CIP document added, “The improvements include the development of large, detention ponds. The systems will provide nutrient reduction during regular, seasonal rainfall events. The project will reduce [the 100-year] floodplain over an approximate 0.5-mile radius from the existing County parcel 0049030012. The floodplain reduction removes several neighborhoods from threat of flooding” during a 100-year flood event, or 10 inches of rainfall in 24 hours, the document also said.
Along with the HUD funding, a portion of the revenue generated by the county’s latest iteration of its penny sales tax program, Surtax 4, will be used to pay for the initiative, the document further noted. The Surtax amount is $155,264, the document said.
The county CIP document that was included in the Aug. 25 agenda packet in regard to the St. Armands project noted that the Surtax 4 program is to provide $827,202 for that initiative, with $13.5 million coming out of the Resilient SRQ Program funds.
As for the Celery Fields project: The Capital Improvement Program document said that the removal of “excess material” within that cell will lower “flood elevations in this vicinity of the Phillippi Creek basin.” The project area is within the Sarasota Bay Watershed, the document added.
The work “is anticipated to concurrently result in additional wetland habitat” and reduce the amount of nutrients in Phillippi Creek, which will result in better water quality, as Stormwater Department Director Ben Quartermaine has explained to the County Commission.
Moreover, the document said, “The floodplain reduction [will remove] several residential and commercial neighborhoods from the [100-year, 24-hour] floodplain.”
This document, too, noted that Surtax 4 money will be added to the HUD funding. The total Surtax figure is $386,000.
The chart included in that CIP document indicated that the work would be finished by the end of the 2029 fiscal year.