On July 6, Gov. DeSantis signed bill making waiver possible
On July 6, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill approved by the Legislature this year that calls for county commissions to be responsible for paying fees — or, technically, commissions — for the collections of any voter-approved school board taxes, beginning in the 2027 fiscal year.
However, as The Sarasota News Leader has reported, that bill also gives tax collectors the authority to waive those fees on voter-approved school board taxes.
On July 7, during a presentation of his proposed budget for the 2027 fiscal year, Sarasota County Tax Collector Mike Moran told the Sarasota County Commission that he already had announced that he would waive the School Board fee this year.
Nonetheless, he asked that the commissioners provide him with a document that formally requests that waiver. The document also should provide an acknowledgment of whether the County Commission does or does not want to waive the fees for the Tax Collector’s Office’s processing of the revenue for the other taxing authorities in the county, Moran emphasized.
For example, he continued, the county board could choose to pay the commission related to his office’s collection of revenue for the Sarasota County Hospital Board.
As long as some taxing authority pays the necessary fees, that is all that matters, Moran added.
He asked that the county Commission let him know how it wants to proceed 90 days prior to his deadline for submission of his annual budget to the Florida Department of Revenue (DOR); this year, it is scheduled to go to the DOR by Aug. 1.
None of the board members remarked on that request prior to the conclusion of his presentation.
Moran did point out that his waiver of collecting the School Board fees this year will reduce the amount of “excess” that his office annually returns to the County Commission.
As he explained during the same presentation, money he has left over after all of his expenses have been covered goes to the county for inclusion in its General Fund. That account pays the costs of all departments and operations of the county’s constitutional officers — such as the sheriff and the supervisor of elections — that receive little or no revenue with which to cover their expenses.
In April, as the News Leader also has reported, the Sarasota County School Board filed a complaint against Moran, in his official capacity, for withholding the commissions for collection of the revenue produced by the special 1-mill tax for which the School Board first won voter approval in 2002. That revenue allows the district to pay for programs and initiatives that would not be possible if the district relied just on the state funding it receives annually, district leaders long have explained.
The most recent referendum on the tax was conducted in 2024, with over 80% of county voters approving its extension.
The County Commission had been paying the commissions on the Tax Collector’s Office’s collection of the revenue from that special tax, Moran has pointed out. However, during its Aug. 19, 2025 budget workshop, the board members voted unanimously to stop doing that and let the School Board cover the fees.
Then, on May 5, at Commissioner Tom Knight’s urging, the board members agreed on a 3-2 vote to reverse that August 2025 decision.
A letter that Moran sent in July 2025 to Sarasota County Schools Superintendent Terry Connor and County Administrator Jonathan Lewis showed that the School Board revenue from the tax that was collected in 2024 totaled $103,962,920. The 2% commission on that amount added up to $2,079,258.
The School Board’s court complaint said that “up to and through March 12, 2026,” Moran had kept $2,055,798.65 in what technically are commissions for his office’s work.
Twelfth Judicial Circuit Judge Hunter W. Carroll had agreed to put the lawsuit on hold until July 20, as the School Board waited to learn whether the new tax bill would become state law. Carroll ordered that the School Board would have until July 20 to file an amended version of its April 24 complaint.
A July 16 News Leader check of the court docket for that complaint showed no new action in the case.
During his July 7 presentation to the County Commission, Moran noted that, as of the 2025 fiscal year, the County Commission had covered a total of $11,289,554 in the commissions on the special school district tax revenue.
As Moran put it, “The Board of County Commissioners was paying [this fee] in error for almost 24 years. … This wasn’t a new fee that was charged. This has always been charged.”
Moran did stress that the issue of who paid the commissions “didn’t impact my budget one penny.”