presentation overview of 2027 budget and millage rates
What the county recorded
This item is not from the published agenda
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The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Sep 22, 2026
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What was said
Machine transcription of 22m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 96% of 83 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Ms. Farrell, please provide a presentation overview of the budget we will be deciding upon this evening.
Alright. Hi Amy Farrell, Budget Director with Pasco County's Office of Management and Budget. This is P1 or OMB twenty six zero zero six four, adoption of final millage rates and final budget for fiscal year twenty twenty-seven.
Alright, so this evening we will review the budget cycle and key touch points with the board, Florida statutes that govern some of the process, major budget assumptions impacting the budget, the overall budget with a particular focus on the general fund, a high level overview of our five year capital improvement plan, and then we'll move into approving millage rates and the budget by resolution.
I just heard myself playing back. That was wild. Oh, I have a weird voice. Alright.
You should never have to hear yourself. Alright, so where was I? Alright, Pasco has a nine month budget process spanning January to September with seven key public facing touch points. In January, we workshop with the board to provide direction on the strategic plan. In February, our office does revenue projections. We update the board during a regular board meeting. In April, we come to a workshop with our constitutional officers and the chief judge. This year we combined that workshop with the board's workshop that
normally happens in June. And then for the first time in July, we did a workshop where we focused mainly on our five-year capital improvement plan and our debt portfolio. And then also in July, the board set trim or what I like to call the ceiling on the millage rates for the upcoming fiscal year. In September we have two public hearing, so our first public hearing was on September 9th, and then tonight is our final public hearing to adopt the budget.
So based on the board's direction and prioritization, the budget that we have for you tonight specifically is responsive to eight of our nine addressable challenges in our strategic plan.
So again, our first public hearing was held on september ninth, and there the board adopted tentative millage rates and budget. Earlier today, during a regular item, The board directed staff to come back to the final public hearing with a general fund millage rate of seven point two four eight eight MILS down from seven point two five nine three MILLs that was set at trim, which is equal to our rollback rate.
And then also earlier today, um, the board, based off board direction and consensus, we re- we are reducing the general operating millage and also the subsidy funding development review services, with the intention of the team to come back with a fee schedule to ensure a reduction of government subsidy on development within the county. So at the time that the fee schedule is ready to come back for approval, we will also take an accompanying budget amendment, which will increase revenues and also allocate to the planning department's operations.
Alright, so here is a very high-level view of our overall budget, which does represent a 6.5% increase over the fiscal year 26 adopted budget. Now if you look at that operating piece, which is the largest piece of our budget, that's tracking at a 2.1% increase, which is tracking with inflation. Now for those of us who are more visual, Like my s mm. Alright, I didn't go too far, not too many clicks. Alright.
Alright, so now for those of us who are more visual like I am, this is the same information from the table on the previous slide, but in a pie chart formation. And so here you can clearly see that over half of our budget is operating. Alright, so on our next slide, we're going to take a deep dive into the purple bit of reserves.
Alright, so this slide takes the roughly six hundred and twenty million dollars from oh that looks real weird. I don't know guys, I'm sorry. I don't know what we did. Just hang with me while I talk to you because it's not supposed to look quite like that. Alright, so the big purple piece on top, this is our enterprise. So in here is our water and solid waste utilities. We use that reserve for three for a few different reasons. So we support operations during an emergent event. We build up cash to fund infrastructure and then we also want to make Ooh,
it looks good. Good job. Alright, focus. Okay. And to make sure that we can meet bond covenants to maintain strong ratings. Earlier today, Commissioner Starkey asked me related to FEMA reimbursements, where does the solid waste reserve sit? And what will it look like once we get those FEMA reimbursements? So currently we have roughly eighty-five point four million in reserves for solid waste. Forty-two million of that is planned for the waste to energy expansion project. Now we've got roughly seventeen million that we're
expecting to come back from FEMA, which would put us up to sixty point four million. Now, if we have one storm like Helena Milton, it would drop those reserves back down to nineteen.
Cause it they hit they had a hit of forty one point five million.
But that would be reimbursable also.
Right. But we'd still have to pay it first, get it later.
Cash.
Yeah.
Alright. So then we try not to hold capital funds in reserves. We like to put that money to work, but when we do hold it, it's because we're cash flowing projects. Internal services, so those are for fleet and our self-insurance. So think health um health insurance, workers, comp and risk. The next piece is special revenues. So these reserves support our daily operations and they're segregated for particular uses. Some examples would be our Municipal Services Taxing Unit, the Tourism Fund, our Transportation
Fund, our Stormwater Fund, and the Tree Fund. And then General Operating, which is that next piece. This supports the Sheriff and other constitutionals, as well as board side departments like parks and libraries. And then the last piece is the Footlocker reserve, and so this is the county's approach to strategically managing growth in light of Amendment 3 being on the November ballot.
So then that $53 million of Footlocker Reserves that is business plan initiatives. And so these are things where departments are looking to add either staffing or programs to support growth that's happening in the county. The next group is General Fund Capital. So those are things like IT projects in Capital, where we're trying to make sure we're securing our cybersecurity and things like that. Parks maintenance, maintaining our facilities. The next grouping is discretionary
funding, so our museum funding, Premier United Way Human Trafficking Coalition. That next group, the multimodal TIFF funded elements of the transportation.
Thank
you,
Chair. Uh Amy, museums
Museum funding that is That's coming out of tourism now, correct? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Joe.
You're welcome. So then the multimodal TIFF so the multimodal TIFF is an earmark of the general fund. And so the portion of that, those funds that support the five-year transportation improvement plan are being held in reserves. And then the last bit, so pro project, operational expenses, and the five-year CIP that meet the following two criteria. We haven't awarded a construction. um contract and the operating costs are funded either
in part or in whole by um ad valorem taxes.
Um Mr. Chairman Mariano.
Mr. Starkey.
What's the multimodal TIF funded elements?
So the multimodal TIFF is an earmark of the general fund. So we typically just call it our TIFF fund, but technically we have a couple different TIFFs. So the multimodal one is there to support transportation. It supports capital, it supports our transit, it supports our public works department. And so what we're holding here are the pieces that support the transportation capital plan. And so it's about eighteen million in FY twenty eight.
Are are you saying we're not gonna build parts of our multimodal project?
So what what what that is doing is taking portions of projects in your FY twenty seven capital plan that are funded in part by that funding source. Do we
get a list of those projects?
You do have a list of of those projects, that is correct. Um it can encompass road projects, it can compass compass it's in a separate subject. It's in
so earlier today we gave you all the details of what's in the footlocker and so it's gonna be in that packet.
Go go on while I find the phone.
Um for the administrator um in our Dade City hearing, did we identify whether or not We needed to build those transfer stations based up based upon you know evolving from our traditional public transit.
Yeah, I I think um and I think I have Nina back here as well who can come up and speak. But I would say that after speaking with with Nina and Kathy, we're still we're still a ways away from any sort of ride share. Is taking over a predominant amount of public transportation. Rideshare actually complements mass transportation. Um and those those types of transfer stations, let's just say we we took the extreme and suddenly we're completely on rideshare, those those areas would
would serve well as a hub and spoke type thing. So that investment is not lost, but I still think we are a very long way away from being able to do Do a full ride share. We're doing the pilot now. Three vehicles uh with a ten, ten mile radius is costing us close to half a million. So we we're having to figure out the economies of scale with that. Nina, is there anything you want to add?
Yes, I just want to say that uh for a transfer station, again the uh fixed route is the backbone for this our system and from there we will grow different type of mobility options that we will be providing to our residents. Right share to Mike's point we have been looking at other um options and we are gonna be doing freebie in a couple of months and then we're gonna be um We got uh um uh funds from Uber to also work with them in a couple of months. We're also working on the agreement as of
right now. And so um we are not shutting down the idea of uh you know, growing and offering different type of uh options for our writers, but we have to be smart about it.
But Nina, these these transfer stations are are multi multimodal multimodal. It's not just buses. Ride share is incorporated into that. And given the demographics of the county, Commissioner, how we're urbanized in some areas, suburban and rural, I think you're you're in I think the future is going to be a combination of transportation alternatives because rideshares work in certain areas better than they do other areas versus mass transportation as well. So I don't think I I I think the money is still well spent given the
fact that we have zero transfer stations today and that is a definite need in our in our current bus system. Yeah.
Nina, can you please state your name and your title for the record?
Janina Elkin uh Copasco Director. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, I need to ask now because I don't I I don't know if y'all look into this as deep. Um Commissioner Mariano's district county line road, shady hills to the Sun Coast Parkway. De Cubulus Road, Little Road to Town Center, what are you saying? We're not
So to clarify, the pieces of the budget that would be offset by the TIFF is what's being held if there's other dollars from mobility fees or some other source that would still be in the budget.
The theory, Commissioner, is that if you know, let's just use use those two road projects that you came up with. Let's say 90% of those road projects were funded through mobility fees. The remaining 10% was augmented through your TIFF. If property tax reform were to occur, uh that will impact the amount of money available to the TIFF. And that could very well impact the amount of subsidy that is available, which could require reshuffling of property. So that's why we're just recommending putting them in there at this point in time. If design's underway, for example, for DeCubellis,
we're continuing with design. We're not going to stop that. It's just if we reach that inflection point of a transition between design and construction or planning and design, that's when we'll that's when we're gonna hit the pause button. And again, we're gonna know in about seven weeks what the answer to that is. So how
can you put ridge right? Yeah. So it's under construction.
So Commissioner, here I've jumped ahead a whole bunch of slides. So if you look at that transportation line, you can see that we still have $105 million programmed and budgeted for FY27. $18 million is being held back from TIFF for the FootLocker recommendation. But there's still a hundred and five million dollars programmed for twenty seven.
Well, I guess if it goes through we'll we'll we'll have to see what we're cutting.
That's the theory, yes.
My goodness. Ridge Road?
And so and so to that point, so one of two things will happen, right? So Amendment number three fails. We'll come back in November with a budget amendment that would put all of these items back into the fiscal year twenty-seven budget. Now if amendment number three passes, we're gonna bring a regular item back to the board in November and we're gonna go through these list of items and have discussion and direction on what then gets put back in the budget, and then my team will bring uh an appropriate budget amendment
in December to put the budget back in place.
Keep going.
Yeah, keep on. Alright, so now we're looking at this slide represents all of the revenues that the county receives. Most of these revenues have rules around how we're allowed to spend them. So let's discuss a few of them. So the purple group up there at the top, those are our property taxes. So that includes your general operating, your fire and rescue municipal services taxing unit, your road rehabilitation taxing unit, and then our voter-approved loans or our general obligation bonds. And so the way those work is we set millage
rates to generate the revenue we need to pay for annual debt service. So we're looking at just under $13 million of annual debt service across all of our general obligation bonds. So now if we move counterclockwise to the green part, so our other sources. So this includes um Where am I? So sales and other taxes. So this is our half cent sales tax, our revenue share piece. And then if you move down a little bit, you'll see penny for PASCO. And then interest,
what we're planning based on our projections from what we've received historically. Fuel taxes. Here we've got federal and state grants. These are not the totality of the federal and state grants we have, those are just the ones that are formulaic and recurring. Nature. So, our waste and wastewater connection fees, those support infrastructure. And then in that other group are things like tourist tax and communication services tax. Then, if we keep going to the red part, our charges for service, fees,
and assessments. So in here we've got our water and wastewater, which supports daily operations, mobility and impact fee that supports infrastructure. Uh stormwater assessments, development review fees, and then in that other grouping we have things like tree removal fees, traffic charges, animal services, and parks.
Commissioner Starkey, the Ridge Road is actually landscaping. It's east of Little Chairman Mariano. It's just in the footlocker.
Alright, so now we're looking at the big macro of our total budget. Now we're gonna come in and be a little bit more laser focused on a high-level overview of our general fund. So here we're projecting a starting balance of just over $86 million of fund balance. And then we're projecting to bring in a little over $569 million in revenue, expecting to spend about $556 million in expenses, leaving us with an ending fund balance of roughly 99.5. Now it's important to note about $25
million of that is related to the Footlocker Reserve. And then the next table just shows you that same information, but we break it out uh recurring. revenue versus recurring expenses and then non-recurring. So think of recurring as things like our day-to-day operations and then that one time is usually things like capital and maintenance.
Alright, so now how is the money in the general fund being allocated? So we'll start with the big piece of the pie, which is public safety, which is just a little over half of our budget in the general fund, and that comprises the sheriff, corrections, emergency management, public safety admin, and juvenile detention. Now if we keep going counterclockwise so we can match the colors on the tables. Next we have outward facing. So this is our parks department, libraries, veteran services, cooperative extension, senior
services, human services, they're all in that piece of the pie. If you keep moving along, that red slice is our other constitutional officers less the sheriff, and um where we support the sixth judicial circuit. And then that blue piece is general government. So this includes maintaining our facilities, our cybersecurity infrastructure, our administrative departments. And it is important to note that the amount listed here represents a reduction of our administrative departments from the 26th
adopted budget. And then the other category includes expenses that aren't really attributable to any one department, like our CRAs, our audit services, our investment services, things like that.
Alright, so here we have a list of expenses in the general fund where we are required to fund them. They're not necessarily services we're required to provide, just funding that we're required to give. And then you will see Medicaids showing a reduction from 2026. And this is related to overpayments in the month of August and September. And that has to do with this state's budget being from July to June and ours being October to September. So um sometimes
we'll see where there's a correction in the next year's allocation. And so This just happens to be one of those years.
Amy quick question.
Yep.
So just as example too, as far as Amendment three coming up. So right now the way it's projected we'd be about four million dollars short the first year of cutting, just paying for the sheriff, the jail, and nine one one. Nothing else is funded. On top of that shortfall, we're gonna have to deal with this not being paid for either. And we'd have to find a way to either fund that or to get the state to pay for it this time.
Yes.
Okay.
Alright, so Commissioner Weightman, this was the question you had earlier. So here you can see the museum support has been moved to the tourist development fund. And then up at the top are the three pieces of discretionary funding that are in the general fund.
Alright, so then our constitutional officer budgets as they sit in the twenty twenty-seven budget is in that column that says FY twenty seven. And then the next two columns, you can see the change by both dollars and percentage from the FY26 adopted budget.
Alright, so here's the high level overview of our five year capital improvement plan. And so it is a $1.6 billion plan. So in fire rescue, we've got stations 31 and 42 planned in there. Um for fleet, we're looking at a generator replacement program. Parks includes um acquisitions for environmentally sensitive land from Penny for Pasco and a couple other projects. Let's see, solid waste includes R ⁇ R for the waste to energy plant.
public work, so that line there is the work that's gonna be accomplished with the funding from the road rehabilitation MSTU. I think that's some juicy tidbits. And the next slide takes us to the five-year transportation plan. So in July, I promised you guys that you would have the finalized details of our five-year transportation capital plan. Those details are in the packets that you have. They're big Excel spreadsheets printed out with different colors for categories along the left side.
Alright, so here we are looking at a $417 million plan over five years. So the first row shows you the funding that we're allocating to capacity projects over those five years. The next group is major maintenance, so think things like bridge maintenance. the multimodal pedestrians, so these are sidewalks and pathways. Safety and intersections is the next group. Then we have signalization projects, street lights, and roadway connections.
Alright, so based off our meeting this morning, this is a list of the millage rates that are embedded in the budget that we just discussed.