Fiscal year 2026 budget overview presentation
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The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Sep 16, 2025
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The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Sep 16, 2025
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Machine transcription of 20m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 100% of 64 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Farrell, please provide a present presentation overview of the budget we will be deciding upon this evening. Thank you.
All right, Amy Farrell, Budget Director with Um Pasco County's Office of Management and Budget. And we are here tonight for the second and final public hearing to adopt the fiscal year 2026 budget.
So, what will we be covering today? So, we're gonna um go over the purpose of the final public hearing. We're going to look at the board's direction in terms of our general fund millage. We're gonna look at the overall resulting total budget. We'll do a dive into the general fund and the capital, and then we will um uh pivot back to the uh each unique millage, adopting those and then the overall budget.
All right. So There's a large body of work that happens as we go through adopting a budget. It starts very early in January, so we'll be kicking off soon again, where we workshop with the board and we get their priorities for the upcoming year so we can take our five-year strategic plan and narrow in our focus into what would we like to tackle in the next upcoming year. And so we'll also be able to give a recap of how the budget that we're presenting this evening encompasses specific areas of our five-year strategic
plan. And then we do a big countywide kickoff with the whole county. And that's officially budget season for everybody and everyone knows it's time to get to work. So what does that work look like? Well in February we go through revenue projections. And we look at the state of the general fund at that time, and we monitor the general fund and our various MSTUs throughout the course of the cycle. March through May, we've got kind of behind the
scenes, we'll call it sleeves up, diving in with all of our department directors and taking a deep dive into budgets and trying to see where we can find some efficiencies. And later in this presentation, we'll talk high-level about some of the ones we were able to find going through this cycle. And then we come back and we workshop with the board. In June, we get preliminary taxable assessed values. So we like to workshop with the board and show them here's the budget as it sits today, preliminary taxable assessed values, here's how we think the general fund is going to look, and then we make
sure these are the priorities we heard, here's where we're going with the budget. Are we on point or do we need to pivot? And then in July we get final taxable assessed values and so we come back and we set the trim at that point. And then we go through some fine muscle movements all the way in August and September, and then we come back here where we can all find consensus on the most appropriate budget to accomplish our body of work while being very cognizant of the impact to our citizens
and our taxpayers.
All right, so the strategic priorities that the board has set forth for us to focus, really laser focus in on this year is around community resilience and sustainability. Reducing homelessness, providing access and availability to cultural, educational, recreational, and social opportunities, meeting affordable and attainable housing needs, focusing on our stressed communities, and supporting our small businesses and entrepreneurship.
Alright, so During our first public hearing and then earlier today when we did a regular presentation and we talked about all of the different um Fine-tuning that happened from the first public hearing to the final public hearing, the board directed staff to come back with a point zero two five mil reduction to the general fund and so The question is, how did we achieve it?
Mike, do you want to take this one over? Or do you want me to keep going? I can keep going. All right. All right. So we got here through a myriad of different ways. So the first thing we looked at was reducing travel, not just in the general fund, but across all funds. Um so a five percent travel reduction and really are charging our departments with Try to be as judicious as you can and if we have online trainings do that. Let's try to give some of the money back from travel and just
be as judicious as possible and try to really maximize the virtual environment that has been around since COVID, really, right? Then we looked at our operation subsidy to the Rhode and Bridge Fund with our multimodal tax increment financing and found some opportunities for refinement there. And then we looked at some what we're calling good faith reserves to reduct uh reduction to reserves, where we expect that some of our innovative ideas through operation
operating, we're going to be able to put some savings throughout the year back into reserves. So we will be monitoring that very closely in the upcoming fiscal year and putting money back into reserves everywhere we can. And then the last bit is what I like to call some midday number crunching between earlier this afternoon and today to really massage that number to the 0.025 reduction that we're able to present to you today.
And in that we are able to give back over $1.4 million to the taxpayers.
All right, so what does our total budget net of interfund transfers look like? So um We talked so I said I was gonna give some high level insight on some of the work that we did to try to refine and find efficiencies in the in the budget. So let's take a look big picture. So this total budget that I'm presenting to you right now is Six million one hundred and seventy four thousand one hundred and nineteen dollars less. than the fiscal year twenty-five adopted budget that we operated in this year.
So we found six million dollars where we could find efficiencies and trim down that budget. Now, in the general fund we were able to find before we even got to a millage reduction, we were able to find over three million dollars of efficiencies.
Now for those of us who are more visual, like myself, um, we've got the table. In a pie chart, so that way it's a little bit more visually representative of the how the different components are in relation to each other. So you'll see the biggest component of our budget is the operating bit, so that day-to-day work that we're doing. If you go clockwise, that next piece is capital. So we've got $411 million planned investment into capital. We've got
about that little sliver's $54 million of debt service for other capital projects that we financed. And then the last sliver is reserves, which is roughly 20% of our overall budget.
All right, so let's take a look at that reserve pie a little bit a little bit more because it seems. Like $453 million might be a lot. However, we have almost 200 funds, and so those reserves are components of those almost 200 funds with which we operate. So that top bit that are our enterprise funds, so these are solid waste and our water utility funds. And so there are some bond covenants that That dictate very heavily
how much we need to keep in reserves in order to maintain our those different bond covenants and stay in alignment with those. So our internal service fund, so that's our fleet fund. Um so in there we try to keep a reserve.
So just just uh I think a big highlight that one sixty eight enterprise fund, part of that's a waste energy plant, correct?
Yes, and part of that is yes, thank you, Commissioner. Part of that is um
Okay, so how can I word this in a way that makes sense to more than just my brain? Alright, so part of how we fund that's a very expensive capital project, right? And so we had to find a varying methodology to fund it. So we've got some debt service funding it, but we're also doing some what we call pay as you go, where you build up a reserve over time so you can cash, you can pay cash for some of the projects and then you can also um use financing and debt service for the remainder. It makes it a little bit more palatable
especially to our ratepayers. And so yes, Commissioner, a portion of that fund is where we're going to be doing pay as you go. And so we expect that will come down in the next year as well. And how how much was that expansion?
Roughly two hundred, two hundred and fifty million.
Yeah. Yes.
All right, so then the next piece of the pie is our internal service fund. So in here we have things like the fleet fund. And so the reserve we try to keep in our fleet fund is we are self-insured on a specific type of our vehicle. So we like to make sure, let's say we were to lose a quarter of our fleet in a in a storm or an emergency, we would be able to replace that fleet without having to come back and impact our customers. The next piece of the pie is our general fund reserve. So that is the the bit of reserve
held in our fund that houses our prop our general fund property taxes, our half-cent sales tax, those things. And in that reserve, we also carry reserve for the constitutional officers who are not able to carry their own reserve. So the board holds reserves for a rainy day for them as well. And that's Should be at sixteen percent. So um
Uh government finance officers association recommends sixteen point seven percent or sixty days of operating in reserves and what we've presented to you right here is twelve point five percent or forty-six days. So we are shy of that sixty-day recommendation.
Madam Chairman Mariano's hit. That's sixty uh sixty days.
Y yes, we were there before.
And then our special revenue funds. So these are things like our fire municipal services taxing unit is in there, the road rehabilitation MSTU is in there. and all all those kinds of funds. Next Is debt service where there's certain places where we need to hold some reserve for debt service. And then the last bit which seems like a really small sliver is for capital projects.
And you might say, Amy, why do we have such a small reserve in capital projects? And I would say because we really don't want to have a reserve for capital projects, we want to spend and execute, however, some of our capital dollars bill. At a rate where we need to carry kind of like we were talking about the solid waste expansion, where we have to let it build up over time so then we could turn around and execute a project. And so what you're seeing there is capital a capital reserve across easily
20 funds, right? Where we're just trying to in some of those funds we're trying to build up so we have enough to execute a capital project. But as opposed to the other funds, there we have a target of zero percent. Anything else before I move on from reserves?
All right. All right, so now let's start talking about the different kinds of revenues that come into the county. So that top piece of the pie, which is purple, that is our property taxes. So in that pie, there's the general property tax, your general operating property taxes, your fire municipal services tax. Tax, the road rehabilitation tax, and then all of our voter-approved or general obligation bond. Tax is in that top pie. That
next bit, because uh finance people are quirky, that's our beginning fund balance or reserves. It's beginning fund balance if it's a revenue and it's reserves if it's an expense, because we like to keep you on our toes. But we already talked about that, so I'm gonna keep going. That bottom bit of the pie chart where it says charges for service fees and assessment. So think of the this bucket. As transactional revenues. I pay this thing, I get this service, I pay this thing, I get this item. So in there are Um
So, ambulance billing, we've got solid waste assessments, stormwater assessments, permitting fees, things like that. So it's one-for-one transactional. If we keep moving to that last bit of the pie where it says other sources, think of these as money comes into one bucket and then it then it comes out for different purposes. So in there we've got penny for Pasco, right? So we all contribute to Penny for Pasco and then there's certain buckets it funnels into. Um our fuel taxes, so that funds
some of our operating costs for roads, that also funds some of our capital construction. Our federal and state grants are in that bucket, those types of things. Under other, we've got like the communication service tax.
if we have any donations, the tourism tax, those types of things.
All right, so we were looking at the macro 60,000 foot view, and now I'm gonna bring us down a little bit into our general fund. And so the column here that says tentative, so that was where we sat at the first public hearing and final is where we sit now with the budget that we are proposing to you. And so just some small muscle movement adjustments here. Um even though there's a little bit less in reserves, we're still at, the math is weird, but we're still at 46 days, but we are at 12.5% rather
than the 12.7%, but we're still holding firm at 46 days. Now Commissioner Weightman's gonna ask me if we had FEMA reimbursements, where would we be? And my answer would be roughly fifty-two days.
All right. So Now how are we spending that money in the general fund? So you will
can I can I say
absolutely
I told you while I was on that call with Bay County. Ten years. from their hurricane they have not gotten their FEMA reimbursement yet. I hoping that we certainly don't have to wait that long. That's something we should have talked to our legislators about.
We do we do very good we do a very good job with our paperwork, so we're we're hoping it won't be that that long. But we'll Stay the course.
All right, so the biggest piece of this pie here is our public safety. And so over over to the right, um the purple table kind of breaks out what those components are. So the sheriff is the Um 190 million, corrections next, fire rescue, and then in that other we've got things like emergency management, public safety admin, juvenile detention, things like that. We've already talked about reserves, the next piece of the pie or general government. So think
of things like maintaining our facilities, our information technology department, human resources, those types of things. Think internal support type services. The next piece of the pyre are other constitutional officers and the sixth judicial circuit. And then that last piece, the green piece, that's where parks, community services, and libraries are. And I would be remiss if I did not point out that our parks budget is $3 million more
than it was when we came to you in July because the sheriff gave us back roughly $2 million of his budget so that way we could reallocate those resources so parks could get to work on some of the capital maintenance that we all know our parks really need.
All right, so here's our outside funding slide. Anything here that is bold and italicized, these are state mandates for us to pay, and then anything that is not bold and not italicized are at the board's discretion to fund.
So then here's our constitutional officer budget request for FY26 and what the county administrator is recommending for approval.
Can you can you go back to that for a second? Yes,
ma'am.
Um do we know where We ended up with raises for everybody.
All right. Um so property appraiser I believe is at five percent. Um
The supervisor of elections was at 3.5. Um And the clerk I know is tracking with us as well at three point five percent.
So we didn't get any traction on. Everyone at three and a half.
And and resubmitting the budget would actually probably cost more than it would save at this point.
All right, and then I would be remiss if we didn't take an opportunity to talk about the execution of our new road rehabilitation MSTU. Um, Jason Mickel was charged with $17 million to put back into the community and spend. And you can see from this slide, based off of what has gone out the door and what is encumbered, which basically means we are under contract, so will be spent. He has met
Mm-hmm.
And so how is he planning to spend Um his revenue next year. And so here you'll see FY26 plan, 27, and 28, his plan based off of um Treat treatment type. So rejuvenation, microsurfacing, milling and resurfacing, all of those different components.
All right, so when we look at our five-year capital improvement plan, so this includes everything except for the general fund, because we've already talked about that. We've got a $1.8 billion five-year plan. We do only adopt the 26 plan, but we like to show the five years that we have planned out. And then because it is the largest piece of our five-year plan, we have a separate slide dedicated to Our transportation engineering capital. And here on the bottom you can see those major capacity projects and
when they're slated to come online and how much we're estimating. And then it was very much a hot topic with our board. You will see that in FY26 we have some money slated for a sidewalk on Shady Hills from Mary GL Elementary to Bosley Drive. Mm-hmm.
All right, and then here is a list of updated millage rates from our daytime meeting. And at this point, um, Chair, if we can go back to the bottom page of the bottom of the first page of the script.