The county votes Tuesday on a tax levy $26 million higher

The county sets its tax rate Tuesday. The hearing starts at 5:01 p.m. in the County Auditorium at 500 San Sebastian View, and the public speaks before anybody votes.

Two motions, in that order. Adopt the final millage rates. Approve the budget.

The advertisement the county ran to notice that hearing is headed NOTICE OF PROPOSED TAX INCREASE. Its first sentence says the board “has tentatively adopted a measure to increase its property tax levy.” Its last says a final decision will be made at this hearing. Between those two sentences it prints two numbers.

Last year’s actual property tax levy was $399,442,949. That is the initially proposed $403,001,621 less $3,558,672 in reductions from the Value Adjustment Board and other assessment changes, and the form does that subtraction itself. This year’s proposed levy is $426,006,002.

The county proposes to collect more than $26 million more in property tax than it collected last year, an increase of about 6 percent.

The rate and the bill are different things

A levy can rise without a rate rising, because the rate lands on a taxable value that moves on its own. That is the reason Florida makes a county advertise the words above, and it is why the statute is fussy about the order of Tuesday’s discussion.

The agenda quotes the requirement. “The first substantive issue of discussion must be the percentage increase in the County’s aggregate millage rate over the rolled-back rate necessary to fund the budget.” The rolled-back rate is the rate that would raise the same money as last year, leaving new construction out. Anything above it is an increase in law, whether or not the number on the rate card moved. That comparison is the first thing the board has to say out loud Tuesday, before public comment and before the vote.

What the rates are

The budget summary advertisement prints a millage rate for every fund the county levies. Three of them reach every property owner in the county.

Add those three and the countywide rate is 5.3603. Property inside the Fire District pays 1.4700 on top of it, and that is a district levy rather than a countywide one.

The same sheet carries a Total All Funds column reading 17.3766. Nobody pays that. It is the sum of every fund on the page, including the fire district and six small special districts whose rates apply only inside their own boundaries.

The budget under the rate

The proposed FY2027 budget totals $1,939,752,566 across all funds. The county’s own page accounts for most of the distance between that figure and a year of ordinary spending. The tentative budget “reflects over $482 million in capital carryforwards,” which is money already appropriated for capital work that crosses a fiscal year and gets counted again when the year turns.

For the operating side, the advertisement carries the statutory comparison in capitals at the top of the page: “THE PROPOSED OPERATING BUDGET EXPENDITURES OF ST. JOHNS COUNTY ARE 2.2% MORE THAN LAST YEAR’S TOTAL OPERATING EXPENDITURES.”

Two other lines matter Tuesday. Reserves across all funds come to $361,158,572, of which $135,046,479 sits in the General Fund. The largest single General Fund line is Transfers to Constitutional Officers, at $184,971,154. That line pools the Sheriff, the Clerk, the Property Appraiser, the Tax Collector and the Supervisor of Elections. It is not any one of their budgets.

Nothing on the sheet changed between the two hearings, and the county says so plainly: “Since there were no changes from the 1st Public Hearing to the millage rates or budget, the Fiscal Year 2027 Tentative Budget Workbook remains the same for this 2nd and Final Public Hearing.”

The $100 million on hold

On Sept. 11 the county published an account of how it has been budgeting against a ballot question. Amendment 3, a proposed property tax amendment, goes to voters Nov. 3.

The county states it “does not advocate for or against the amendment.” What it has done since May is inventory what it would have to stop doing.

• Approximately $100 million in capital improvement projects placed on hold, sorted by a committee against criteria weighing life safety, grant funding, reliance on property taxes, how far along the work is, and what it costs to stop and restart it.
• $4 million attached to current vacant positions, $2 million in FY2027 positions not recommended for funding, and $2.6 million in recommended but paused positions, all flagged for reassessment after the election.
• $31.2 million in emergency response reserves, plus $30 million in additional General Fund reserves the county describes as designated for financial resiliency in response to Amendment 3.
• A service inventory covering 380 services across 18 departments, and a review of 1,137 existing fees along with several dozen proposed new ones.

The release attributes to the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research estimates that passage would cut county property tax revenue by $68.3 million in FY2028, $136.1 million in FY2029 and $191.6 million in FY2032.

“Placing these projects on hold does not mean they have been canceled,” the chair of the county’s capital improvement project oversight committee is quoted saying in the release. “After the election, we will reassess the projects using the best available information and recommend a path forward.”

What last year looked like

The county announced the FY2026 budget on Oct. 1 as $1.8 billion, allocating $383 million from property tax revenue, and called it the first property tax reduction since FY2021, with a $9.1 million reduction in General Fund property taxes.

That is the county’s description of its own last budget. Tuesday’s is the next one.

If you want to be in the room

Final budget hearing, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 5:01 p.m., County Auditorium, 500 San Sebastian View. The regular commission meeting starts the same morning at 9.

The county has also noticed a town hall on Amendment 3 for Tuesday, Sept. 29, at 6:30 p.m., in the same auditorium. That is two weeks after the vote.