The Big Picture
The cost of Sarasota County government more than doubled — and the steepest climb came on this board's watch
Counting what the county spends and what it still owes together, the burden rises +138% — from $1.23B in FY2015 to $2.93B in FY2026, the budget the sitting board approved — while population grew +24%. Per resident, that is $3,132 rising to $6,002 — $24,007 for a family of four. It was still $3,648 in FY2022, the year before their watch began.
FY2026–FY2027 figures are pro forma from the county's Adopted FY2026 and Preliminary FY2027 Financial Plans, converted to the audited accrual basis; the audited FY2026 ACFR (early 2027) supersedes them.
The problem, in one line
What a resident owes the county government is two things at once: what it spends running the place this year, and what it still owes on decisions already made. Adding them together is the honest opening view, because a household feels both. From FY2015 to the FY2026 budget the sitting board approved, that combined burden more than doubled — while the population it serves grew by about a quarter.
- Combined burden FY2015
- $1.23B
- Combined burden FY2026
- $2.93B
- Population growth, same years
- +24.4%
- Cost per resident
- $6,002
Spending + outstanding debt, audited
+138.3% over the period; pro forma from the adopted plan
392,090 → 487,640
Up from $3,132 in FY2015; $5,022 audited FY2025
Spending and debt together, audited basis
One publisher, one audited basis, every year — so this line can be drawn continuously. Spending rose +100.5% and debt rose +98.3%: neither half is carrying the story by itself.
The curve turns in FY2021
Cost per resident is the number that isolates the question, because it already accounts for growth. It rose +6.5% across the six years to FY2021, then +50.6% in the four years after. A ten-year average would have hidden that entirely.
What that is per household
Was $3,132 in FY2015
Was $12,527
Additional per year vs. the base year
The family-of-four figure is the per-resident number multiplied by four. It is a scale device for a four-person household, not a measured tax bill: an individual household's actual contribution varies with property value, homestead status, and which utility and service districts it sits in. FY2026 is pro forma from the adopted plan; audited FY2025: $20,087 per family of four.
Why there are two charts and not one
The figures above are audited actuals. Adopted budgets are a different measuring stick, and the county publishes several of them in the same book. The gross “all funds” total counts money that moves between departments more than once and includes reserves never spent; the county's own budget office notes those items “inflate the total budget.”
So the budget series below is drawn on the county's net basis, on its own axis, and is never joined to the audited line. Splicing an adopted gross budget onto an audited actual would produce a dramatic spike that is a change of definition rather than a change in spending — the single easiest claim on this site for an opponent to discredit.
On this consistent net basis the adopted budget grew +67.4% from $1.17B to $1.96B, and the sharpest single-year move is +46.9% between FY2023 and FY2024.
The FY2024 Adopted Financial Plan is not in the document set. Its net figure here is derived from the FY2025 book's own stated change (decrease of $115,658,483; increase of $37,244,386; increase of $372,120,832), and the derivation is validated by checking that the published changes reconcile against the published totals for the years where both exist. Derived bars are drawn hollow.
Every figure in the chart
| Fiscal year | Spending | Debt | Combined | Population | Per resident | Family of 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2015 | $607.6M | $620.3M | $1.23B | 392,090 | $3,132 | $12,527 |
| FY2016 | $664.8M | $625.5M | $1.29B | 399,538 | $3,229 | $12,918 |
| FY2017 | $698.7M | $618.8M | $1.32B | 407,260 | $3,235 | $12,940 |
| FY2018 | $722.5M | $600.0M | $1.32B | 417,442 | $3,168 | $12,672 |
| FY2019 | $764.4M | $628.9M | $1.39B | 426,275 | $3,268 | $13,074 |
| FY2020 | $804.0M | $648.0M | $1.45B | 434,006 | $3,346 | $13,382 |
| FY2021 | $765.6M | $706.9M | $1.47B | 441,508 | $3,335 | $13,341 |
| FY2022 | $823.2M | $827.3M | $1.65B | 452,378 | $3,648 | $14,594 |
| FY2023 | $968.8M | $826.1M | $1.79B | 464,223 | $3,866 | $15,466 |
| FY2024 | $977.1M | $1.01B | $1.98B | 479,027 | $4,141 | $16,562 |
| FY2025 | $1.22B | $1.23B | $2.45B | 487,640 | $5,022 | $20,087 |
| FY2026pro forma | $1.47B | $1.45B | $2.93B | 487,640 | $6,002 | $24,007 |
| FY2027pro forma | $1.48B | $1.45B | $2.93B | 487,640 | $6,009 | $24,036 |
Source: Sarasota County FY2025 ACFR (year ended Sept 30, 2025), Statistical Section: Changes in Net Position; Ratios of Outstanding Debt by Type. FY2015 and the FY2016-FY2024 cross-check come from the FY2024 ACFR.
Before and during
The cost curve bent when the board changed
Mark Smith (District 2) and Joe Neunder (District 4) were elected November 8, 2022 and sworn in November 22, 2022; their terms expire in November 2026. The combined cost of spending and debt per resident had been climbing 2.21% a year for the seven years before their watch. Across the four fiscal years of their watch — FY2023 through the FY2026 budget they approved — it is climbing 13.25% a year: 6.0 times the prior rate.
On their watch · FY2022 → FY2026 pro forma
$3,648$6,002
+$2,353 (+64.5%), of which +$1,373 is already audited through FY2025
$14,594$24,007
+$9,413 per family across the four fiscal years of the term
FY2022 is the last fiscal year completed entirely before they held office. FY2026 is carried from the budget they approved, converted to the audited accrual basis — method in the footnotes below.
Before · 7 years
+16.5% · 2.21% per year
Their watch · 4 years, through the FY2026 budget
+64.5% · 13.25% per year
Combined cost per resident
Total spending plus total debt outstanding, divided by population. Solid line: audited ACFR actuals, one publisher and one basis every year. Dashed line: pro forma from the county's own adopted plans, on the same accrual basis.
Basis: audited ACFR actuals FY2015–FY2025 · pro forma FY2026–FY2027 (dashed)
The shaded band is their watch: sworn in November 22, 2022 — seven weeks into FY2023 — every FY2023 amendment and outlay from that day forward required their continuing consent, and the vote record shows them approving those items, not stopping them. The dashed years carry the county's own adopted plans forward: spending applies FY2025's audited realization ratio (58.3% of the adopted gross budget was actually spent) to each adopted plan; FY2026 debt repeats FY2025's actual net growth, corroborated by the plan's own $158.1M of scheduled new borrowing; FY2027 debt is held at the FY2026 level because no FY2027 borrowing schedule exists in the county's documents — a floor, not a forecast. Population is held at the last official estimate (487,640); using the state's projected growth instead would make the per-resident figure smaller, not larger. The audited FY2026 ACFR (early 2027) supersedes both dashed points.
What it means for a family of four
The same combined figures multiplied by four. This is a per-capita share of the county's combined spending and debt, not a tax bill — much of the money comes from tourists, impact fees, grants, and utility ratepayers rather than directly from a household.
Across the four fiscal years of their watch, the combined burden on a family of four rises $9,413 — +64.5% in four years, against +16.5% across the previous 7.
† FY2026 is carried from the county's adopted FY2026 budget, converted to the audited accrual basis; the audited FY2026 ACFR (early 2027) supersedes it. Audited through FY2025: $20,087.
Year by year, audited
| Fiscal year | Spending | Debt owed | Combined | Population | Per resident | Family of 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2015 | $607.6M | $620.3M | $1.23B | 392,090 | $3,132 | $12,527 |
| FY2016 | $664.8M | $625.5M | $1.29B | 399,538 | $3,229 | $12,918 |
| FY2017 | $698.7M | $618.8M | $1.32B | 407,260 | $3,235 | $12,940 |
| FY2018 | $722.5M | $600.0M | $1.32B | 417,442 | $3,168 | $12,672 |
| FY2019 | $764.4M | $628.9M | $1.39B | 426,275 | $3,268 | $13,074 |
| FY2020 | $804.0M | $648.0M | $1.45B | 434,006 | $3,346 | $13,382 |
| FY2021 | $765.6M | $706.9M | $1.47B | 441,508 | $3,335 | $13,341 |
| FY2022 | $823.2M | $827.3M | $1.65B | 452,378 | $3,648 | $14,594 |
| FY2023sworn in | $968.8M | $826.1M | $1.79B | 464,223 | $3,866 | $15,466 |
| FY2024 | $977.1M | $1.01B | $1.98B | 479,027 | $4,141 | $16,562 |
| FY2025 | $1.22B | $1.23B | $2.45B | 487,640 | $5,022 | $20,087 |
| FY2026pro forma | $1.47B | $1.45B | $2.93B | 487,640(held flat) | $6,002 | $24,007 |
| FY2027pro forma | $1.48B | $1.45B | $2.93B | 487,640(held flat) | $6,009 | $24,036 |
Shaded rows are fiscal years whose budgets Smith and Neunder voted to adopt. Debt is total outstanding at year-end, not annual debt service. Italic pro forma rows are projections from the county's own adopted plans, not audits — the audited FY2026 ACFR (early 2027) supersedes them; method in the footnotes below.
Dollars versus people
Combined spending and debt against population, both indexed to FY2015 = 100. If cost rose only because more people arrived, these two lines would track together.
Basis: audited ACFR actuals, indexed · FY2015–FY2025
Over the same eleven years the combined figure rose 99.4% while population rose 24.4%. Growth explains part of the increase but not most of it.
Through the end of the term
What the board actually voted to authorize
The pro forma above estimates what will be spent; this track records what the board approved. On the county's own net budget basis — the same yardstick in every year below — the authorized cost per resident rose +55.3% from the FY2022 baseline to the FY2026 budget they adopted.
Authorized per resident
+55.3%
Authorized, family of four
+55.3%
The largest single-year jump of their watch came with the FY2024 budget, which raised the authorized net cost per resident +42.4% in one year, and a family of four's authorized share is $5,716 higher in FY2026 than at the FY2022 baseline.
Authorized net budget per resident
What the board voted to authorize, on the county's own net basis. This reaches FY2026 — the last budget of their term — because an audited actual for FY2026 does not exist yet.
Basis: adopted net budget · FY2022–FY2026
Hollow bars are derived, not printed: FY2022 and FY2024 net are computed from each book's own stated year-over-year change. An adopted budget is a ceiling on spending, not a record of it, which is why this chart is kept separate from the audited line above rather than joined to it.
How these numbers were built, and their limits
- The pro forma method. An adopted budget is a ceiling, not an outcome — adopted figures ran +42.1% above the audited actual in FY2022, +8.8% above the audited actual in FY2023, +30.1% above the audited actual in FY2025— so raw budget numbers are never placed on the audited line. Instead, FY2026–FY2027 spending applies FY2025's audited realization ratio (58.32% — audited expenses of $1.22B against the adopted gross of $2.09B) to each adopted plan, converting the budget onto the same accrual basis as the audit. FY2026 debt repeats FY2025's actual net growth (+$224.0M), corroborated by the Adopted FY2026 Plan's own $158.1M of scheduled new borrowing; FY2027 debt is held at the FY2026 level because no FY2027 borrowing schedule exists in the corpus. These are projections — drawn dashed, labeled in every table — and audited fy2026 acfr, publishing early 2027 supersedes them.
- Why FY2023 counts as theirs. Elected November 8, 2022 and sworn in November 22, 2022 -- seven weeks into FY2023; terms expire November 2026. FY2023 is counted on their watch: the original FY2023 budget was adopted in September 2022, but from the day they were seated every FY2023 amendment, appropriation, and outlay that reached the board required their continuing consent, and the vote record shows them approving those items, not stopping them. Their watch is FY2023 through FY2026, measured against FY2022, the last fiscal year completed entirely before they held office.
- FY2026 population. No official 2026 population exists. EDR publishes county projections only at five-year benchmarks, and Sarasota County's own FY2026 adopted budget cites EDR/BEBR rather than publishing its own figure. The last official estimate (April 1, 2025) is used and held flat. Holding it flat is the conservative choice here: using an interpolation toward EDR's 2030 projection (495,267) would put authorized cost at $3,953 per resident and the increase at +52.9% instead of +55.3% — a smaller number, not a larger one.
- Correlation, not proof of cause. These figures establish when the curve bent and who held the seats. They do not by themselves establish which votes caused it — and some drivers, such as post-hurricane recovery, federal grant cycles, and utility capital programs, are not board decisions at all. The individual votes are examined separately.
- Per-resident is a share, not a bill. Dividing by population is a standard way to compare years, but the money is not collected per head. Tourist development tax, impact fees, state and federal grants, and utility rates all sit inside these totals.
The debt, counted completely
Debt is the half of the burden that outlives the budget that created it. The county publishes a debt profile with a bold total — and then lists four more obligations underneath it that the total leaves out.
- Headline senior lien debt
- $1.03B
- Obligations below the line
- $111.2M
- Actual principal outstanding
- $1.14B
- Per resident
- $2,334
The figure in bold
Disclosed, but not in the total
Headline understates by 9.8%
$2,106 if you stop at the headline
What the county borrowed against
Nine senior-lien credits, each pledged to a different revenue stream. The pledge matters: a utility bond is repaid by ratepayers, a surtax bond by shoppers, a general obligation bond by property taxpayers directly.
| Pledged revenue | Outstanding | Share | Ratings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utility System | $505.8M | 49.2% | AA+ / AA+ |
| Half-Cent Sales Tax | $245.2M | 23.9% | AA+ / AA+ |
| Infrastructure Sales Surtax | $112.2M | 10.9% | AA / AA+ |
| General Obligation | $45.45M | 4.4% | Aaa / AAA / AAA |
| Solid Waste System | $43.89M | 4.3% | AA+ |
| State Revenue Sharing | $31.32M | 3.1% | AA- / AA+ |
| Limited Ad Valorem Tax | $28.28M | 2.8% | not publicly rated |
| Tourist Development Tax | $13.67M | 1.3% | AA- / AA |
| Communications Services Tax | $1.25M | 0.1% | not publicly rated |
| Total senior lien | $1,026,955,000 | 100.0% |
The four obligations under the footnote
Each of these appears in the same document, on the same pages, below the total. None is hidden. But a reader who quotes the bold figure understates what the county owes by $111.2M.
- Utility System Revenue Bonds (WIFIA Loan), Series 2021, drawn$57,320,748
- Commercial Paper obligations$28,792,000
- Subordinate Lien Utility System Refunding Note, Series 2021$15,555,000
- State Infrastructure Bank Loan (2020 River Road)$9,542,608
- Total excluded from the headline$111,210,356
Why this differs from the audited debt figure
This is a bond/loan principal snapshot at 12/31/2025 and is NOT the same measure as the ACFR debt series above. The ACFR figure ($1,230,309,000 at 9/30/2025) is broader -- per the source workbook it also includes leases, SBITAs and notes payable -- and is struck at fiscal year end. The two differ by scope and by date; neither contradicts the other.
Source: Sarasota County Debt Profile 2025 (PFM), p.9-10, figures as of 12/31/2025. Figures as of December 31, 2025.
What is already planned
The county's preliminary FY2027 plan is a published intention, not an adopted budget, and it is presented separately for that reason. It is on the gross basis the plan itself uses.
- FY2027 preliminary, gross
- $2.53B
- Capital improvement program
- $312.4M
- Debt service
- $109.3M
- General fund ad valorem
- $305.1M
Preliminary; all funds
Within $500.5M of capital funds
Scheduled principal and interest
Property tax revenue up 3.0% on taxable value up 2.1%
Property tax revenue is planned to rise faster than taxable value — 3.0% against 2.1% — on a tax roll of $112.37B.
Source: Sarasota County FY2027-2031 Preliminary Financial Plan, p.6 (Administrator's message), p.11 and p.24-28.
Who the increase lands on
A cost increase is not felt evenly. Sarasota County is one of the oldest counties in Florida, which shapes both who votes on a budget and who absorbs it. The figures below describe that structure — they do not claim county spending created it.
An unusually old county
Only Sumter and Charlotte rank older. A county where nearly two in five residents are past working age has a tax base weighted toward fixed incomes and a service demand profile unlike a younger county's — which is also why comparing Sarasota's per-resident spending to the state average needs care.
A wide gap between top and bottom
Household income, 80th percentile
$152,658
Household income, 20th percentile
$36,470
Ratio, top to bottom
4.19×
Same source table, so directly comparable
Median household income is $78,218, ranking 14 of 67 counties and slightly above the state's $73,283. A healthy median with a 4.19× spread is the signature of a split economy rather than a uniformly prosperous one — and a flat cost increase takes a much larger bite out of $36,470 than out of $152,658.
What it costs to work here
Childcare, share of household income
27.5%
Florida 25.9% · ranks 20 of 67
Households in severe housing cost burden
30,841
13.6% paying over half their income for housing
Homeownership
76.3%
The remainder face rent set by the market, not a fixed mortgage
Residents who are food insecure
51,990
11.8% of the county
Childcare consumes 27.5% of a typical household's income here, above the state rate. These are the costs that fall on the working-age minority who staff the hospitals, schools, restaurants and construction sites — the households least able to absorb a utility rate increase or a higher assessment, and the ones with the least slack when the combined burden per resident rises.
Outcomes are not evenly distributed
Child poverty, county overall
13.4%
Black children 33.4% · white children 9.9%
Child poverty gap
3.4×
Black child poverty relative to white
Life expectancy, county overall
80.3 yrs
White 80.0 · Black 72.8
Life expectancy gap
7.2 yrs
Difference between white and Black residents
These are measured outcomes in the county's population, reported by an independent academic source. They are context for who bears cost, not evidence about the cause of any single budget decision.
Source: County Health Rankings & Roadmaps 2025 (University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute), Florida county file. Ranks computed across the 67 Florida counties.
This page establishes the problem
It does not propose what to do about it. The department-level breakdown of where the increase went, the statewide ranking with its strongest counter-argument, and the measured savings opportunities separated by who actually controls the money are all in the main review.
Read the fiscal review