County value up 17.76%, compared to 2021 certified figure
(Editor’s note: This article was updated on the morning of July 1 to add in extra information from the City of Sarasota.)
Forget the 16.71% increase in the value of Sarasota County property that the Property Appraiser’s Office reported in late May.
Instead, the required July 1 reports show a jump of about 17.76%, compared to the 2021 certified value.
As The Sarasota News Leader pointed out in early June, state economists had predicted that the county property value would climb 9% this year. During the June 23-24 budget workshops the County Commission conducted, Kim Radtke, director of the Office of Financial Management, noted that the preliminary data released before June 1 — to comply with state law — would mean approximately $14.5 million more for the General Fund for the 2023 fiscal year. Thus, the county will have even more revenue for that “pot” of money, given the July 1 report.
The General Fund pays for operations of departments both within county government and those of the county’s constitutional officers — such as the Supervisor of Elections — that do not generate income of their own. Property tax payments make up the largest amount of revenue for the General Fund each year.
The July 1 property values are used by local governments for the Truth in Millage notices that the Property Appraiser’s Office mails out each August. Those notices tell a property owner the maximum amount he or she would owe the local government bodies, based on the not-to-exceed millage rates that have been approved.
Brian Loughrey, chief deputy property appraiser in the county, sent the July 1 data to the taxing authorities on the morning of June 29, so “they can begin the process to determine and certify a preliminary millage rate,” he told the News Leader. Loughrey provided copies of the reports to the publication at its request.
The County Commission will set its not-to-exceed millage rate later this month, before it takes its traditional summer break. The Sarasota City Commission is scheduled to conduct its 2023 fiscal year budget workshops on July 25 and 26 and then hold a special meeting on July 26 to approve its not-to-exceed millage.
One mill represents $1 per $1,000 of property value. Therefore, the owner of a home valued at $300,000 would pay $300 in property taxes.
On June 23, Radtke of the county Office of Financial Management also showed the commissioners a slide comparing total county property values from the 2006 fiscal year through the 2022 fiscal year, with the June 1 estimate of approximately $81.8 billion for FY 2023.
The lowest value over that span was marked in the 2013 fiscal year: $39.1 billion. That came as the county was continuing to cover from the Great Recession.
In the 2008 fiscal year, before the economic downturn began, the value was put at $62.7 billion. It was not until the 2021 fiscal year that the county finally exceeded that figure, with a value of about $65.5 billion.
In a June 23 report, released prior to the County Commission budget workshops last week, County Administrator Jonathan Lewis noted that the proposed 2023 fiscal year budget is $1,449,245,514. That compares to a little more than $1.5 billion for the current fiscal year, which will end on Sept. 30.
Even before the June property value estimates were released, in late May, the County Commission had made it clear that it had no plans to raise its millage rate for the 2023 fiscal year. This year, as in recent years, the Sarasota County millage rate is the second-lowest in the state, Lewis has pointed out.
Increases for School Board and municipalities
The county is not the only local government in Sarasota County to realize a higher property value in the new reports, compared to those that the Property Appraiser’s Office released before the June 1 deadline.
The earlier data showed the City of Sarasota’s property value was up 17.41% this year, compared to the 2021 figure. The July 1 report puts the increase at 18.5%. In response to a News Leader inquiry about how much extra revenue the city would expect to receive as a result of that change, city Communications Specialist Jason Bartolone reported in a July 1 email, “The difference in calculated revenues from June 1 to July 1 estimates is an additional $417,828.”
The biggest leap in property values of all the local government bodies in the county, as shown by the July 1 reports, is for the Sarasota County School Board. Its property value in the July 1 data jumped 27.1%, compared to the certified 2021 property value. The June data put the increase at 24.45%.
The second highest spike shown in the July 1 data is for the City of North Port: about 26.1%. North Port had the highest uptick in the June 1 report; that was 24.52%.
For the City of Venice, the July 1 report says the property value rose slightly from the June 1 report, to about 18.7%. The June data put that figure at 18.45%.
The Town of Longboat Key’s property value in the July 1 report is up 14.5%, compared to the certified value in 2021. Its preliminary, June 1 uptick was 13.31%.
Parcel counts and homestead exemptions
Along with the property values, the latest reports provide details on the number of parcels or accounts for each local government, as well as the figures showing how many parcels have homestead exemptions.
The county report puts the total number of parcels at 293,685. That compares to 289,828 in the report for July 1, 2021.
Of those, 628 are classified as serving agricultural purposes; in 2021, the number was 800.
The count of parcels with homestead exemptions, on which the values are capped each year, is 117,816. In 2021, that figure was 113,487.
Additionally, data show that the value of single-family homes in the county is $72,311,777,900, while the value of multi-family structures with 10 or more units is $2,608,360,600.
In contrast, the value of condominiums in the county totals $23,316,927,300.
In the city of Sarasota, the total number of parcels is 27,754, that report says. In 2021, the city had 27,716 parcels, the Property Appraiser’s Office noted.
This year, 10,770 City of Sarasota parcels have homestead exemptions, compared to 10,256 in 2021.
No lands in the city are classified as having agricultural purposes.
For the City of North Port, the parcels number 76,512, with 42 classified as serving agricultural purposes. In 2021, the parcel count was 75,631.
North Port has 20,688 parcels with homestead exemptions; last year, the number was 19,592.
For Venice, the number of parcels is 19,100; 7,174 have homestead exemptions. In 2021, Venice had 18,040 parcels, 6,925 of which had homestead exemptions.
And Venice does have 14 parcels classified as agricultural.
The Town of Longboat’s new parcel tally is 6,373, compared to 6,617 in 2021.
This year, 1,826 Longboat parcels have homestead exemptions; the count in 2021 was 1,693.
Like the City of Sarasota, Longboat has no agricultural lands.
Finally, the Sarasota County School Board has 293,685 parcels, with 628 classified as agricultural. Further, 117,816 of the total number of parcels have homestead exemptions.