Despite tough talk from Sarasota County commissioners, this year’s final budget workshop ended with little progress on curbing spending.
Commissioners met Tuesday where they spent four hours in a cramped room hearing constitutional officers explain why their budgets should remain intact, with the commissioners failing to ask any of the agencies to cut more than what they had proposed last month.
That comes after years of ballooning budgets with the county’s proposed spending expected to top $2.5 billion in Fiscal Year 2026.
The two departments with the largest increases — the sheriff’s office and the tax collector — skipped the workshop altogether, leaving commissioners unwilling to press for further cuts. And, rather than reduce his budget, Tax Collector Mike Moran informed commissioners ahead of the meeting that he would increase it — surpassing his previous projection.
In addition, Moran’s office uncovered what he said was a long-running mistake that will result in the county sending Sarasota County Schools a nearly $600,000 bill for tax collection costs this year — a move that could deepen the district’s own budget crisis.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, commissioners vowed to revamp the budget process starting next year by kicking off workshops in February instead of March and capping budget requests at 1.6% — instead of the historical average of 5.9%
“We've got to take a very serious approach and set expectations going forward," said Commissioner Ron Cutsinger. "We're going to be facing some serious decisions.”
Cutsinger said that he did not believe county finances were in a crisis but acknowledged times could get tough in the coming years.
Few concessions from department heads, constitutional officers
The workshop was scheduled after commissioners realized this summer they were running headlong into a looming deficit and called for a fifth session that hadn’t originally been planned. At the same time, they had directed County Administrator Jonathan Lewis to ask all department heads and constitutional officers to find ways to trim their requests.
Few concessions followed.
State Attorney Ed Brodsky told commissioners Tuesday he needed two new positions to staff an involuntary hold facility for mental health patients near North Port — on top of what his office had requested in July. Commissioners agreed to fund an additional 1.5 positions after Bodsky voluntarily trimmed his ask.
Chief Medical Examiner Russell Vega justified his 8.7% increase by pointing to lease obligations and property tax passthroughs — costs that will vanish next year once the county buys the building.
Public Defender Larry Eger spent less than three minutes at the table with not a single commissioner pressing him to pare back his roughly 10% budget increase.
“With that, I’m going to drop the mic,” Eger quipped as he prepared to leave.
Commissioner Teresa Mast said the commission needed to be more direct with the agencies requesting money, comparing the current approach to a thermometer taking the room’s temperature. She said they need to be more like a thermostat.
“You say, this is what we're going to be,” she said. “So you dictate how that's going to occur.”
Commissioner Tom Knight said the county is already in deep trouble, pointing to the recalcitrant responses and an inability to reduce spending by even this year’s $20 million hole.
“I think if we don’t start preparing for it now,” he said, “then we’re just kicking the can and we’re going to make it harder on ourselves in the future.
While failing to reduce the budget by any significant degree this year, all five commissioners supported capping spending in Fiscal Year 2027 at 1.6% with 2028 through 2030 increases capped at 3.6%.
Spending at that level would eliminate future shortfalls and see the county begin to build back depleted reserves.
That’s likely to be a tough battle in future years given current budget trajectories.
Sheriff and tax collector represent biggest increases
Over the past five years, every elected leader in the county has asked for average increases of at least 6%. The largest driver of what the commission funds comes from the sheriff’s office, which over the past five years has increased its budget by about $90 million.
“I think it looks good on PowerPoint,” Knight told the other commissioners about spending reductions. “I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Current budget issues don't include a push by Moran to reduce what his office turns over to the county in unspent funds each year. Historically, the tax collector has returned $15 to $20 million to the county’s general fund, with Moran promising to return nothing in future years.
Moran’s effort to change longstanding operations didn’t stop there — it also extended to the way his office handles school district taxes.
Before the workshop, which he skipped, Moran sent letters to Administrator Lewis and School Superintendent Terry Conor saying his office had uncovered a 23-year mistake: The county had been paying to collect the school district’s voter-approved millage, a cost that should have been the district’s responsibility. Last year alone, those fees totaled $589,556.
Under state law, counties cover only collection costs for non-voter-approved property taxes, meaning the district must now pay its own bill.
Sheriff Kurt Hoffman, another no-show, had the largest cut in spending from his more than $220 million budget. The reduction of $2.4 million represented an about 1% decrease as he plans to fund about 30 new positions next year.
Knight was the only commissioner who proposed asking the sheriff’s office to do more, pointing to what Manatee county commissioners requested earlier this month. There, commissioners facing their own revenue crunch asked Sheriff Rick Wells to trim his budget request by 3% — about $8.5 million this year.
Finding no appetite to challenge the sheriff’s increases, Chairman Joe Neunder shut down the discussion and moved on.
“I don't see anybody else here at the moment,” he said, “that really wants to talk about it.”
This story was produced by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
