Alachua County Commission reduces property tax rate, adopts budget on first reading

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a special meeting on September 11, the Alachua County Commission set its property tax rates and adopted a budget on first reading; the second public hearing will be at 5:01 p.m. on September 23. They also set the final fire assessment, stormwater, and solid waste fees.

Property tax rate and FY26 budget

Assistant County Manager Tommy Crosby said the proposed property tax rate is 7.6000, 6.36% higher than the rolled-back rate of 7.1455 mills and 0.018 mills lower than last year’s property tax rate of 7.6180 mills. The proposed property tax rate for the Municipal Service Taxing Unit (MSTU) for Law Enforcement is 3.5678 mills, 6.66% higher than the rolled-back rate of 3.3450 mills and the same as last year’s rate.

The proposed All Funds budget for FY26 is $946,936,554, the proposed General Fund budget is $323,980,568, and the MSTU Law Enforcement budget is $43,528,502.

Prizzia: “We’re also facing the same inflationary issues that you’re facing, so we’re trying to cut our taxes the best that we can, while still maintaining the level of service that you all expect from us.”

During public comment on the budget, several people complained about how high their property taxes are and how difficult it is for them to pay those bills. After Crosby explained that the budget increases are largely due to inflation and the increasing property tax bills are more a matter of increasing property values than the millage, which the County has decreased for nine years in a row, Commissioner Anna Prizzia said, “We’ve really taken it seriously… that we’re in difficult times, and that’s why we’ve lowered our millage rate every year. We just haven’t lowered it all the way back to the rolled-back rate, because we’re also facing the same inflationary issues that you’re facing, so we’re trying to cut our taxes the best that we can, while still maintaining the level of service that you all expect from us.” She said the County offers hardship exemptions, and residents can apply for those through the Property Appraiser.

Motions

Commissioner Ken Cornell made a motion to set the property tax rate at 7.6000 mills, and the motion passed unanimously.

Commissioner Mary Alford made a motion to adopt the proposed budget for FY26, and Cornell seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

A motion to adopt the MSTU Law Enforcement property tax rate (made off-microphone) passed unanimously.

Cornell made a motion to adopt the proposed MSTU Law Enforcement budget, and the motion passed unanimously.

Prizzia made a motion to adopt the FY26 Sugarfoot Oaks/Cedar Ridge Special Assessment District non-ad valorem rate of $10 per unit per month, and the motion passed unanimously.

Alford made a motion to adopt the FY26 stormwater rate of $60 per Equivalent Residential Unit, and there were multiple seconds. The motion passed unanimously.

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler made a motion to adopt the Fire Service Final Assessment Rate of $132.47 per parcel for Tier 1 and $7.28 per EBU for Tier 2, Cornell seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously.

Cornell made a motion to adopt the solid waste rates, with multiple seconds, and the motion passed unanimously. 

Commission Comment

During Commission Comment at the end of the meeting, Prizzia noted that several people had showed up to speak during the budget adoption hearing, but almost nobody had attended the budget development meetings where the decisions were made. She said, “I just want to encourage those people that are here to plug into our budget development process.” She suggested that in the future, Crosby could give presentations at those meetings to compare the County’s property tax rates to other counties in the state. She continued, “And I think that it would also be helpful [for people to know] that while [the property tax rate] isn’t going all the way back to the rolled-back rate, we are endeavoring to cut taxes to the best of our ability.”

Cornell responded, “This would have been a good night for me to do my DOGE speech, I guess. But also I want to mention that we did discuss the rolled-back rate, and we had a long discussion about that, and there’s a lot of uncertainty ahead, and I hope that we can do the rolled-back rate next year, and I hope that we can continue to reduce it like we have for the last nine years.”

Prizzia: “It’s going to take a real effort by the Sheriff’s Office to also want to go to the rolled-back rate, because over half our budget goes to the Sheriff’s Office, and he’s a separately elected official that has a whole entire budget that he creates by himself.”

Prizzia said, “It’s going to take a real effort by the Sheriff’s Office to also want to go to the rolled-back rate, because over half our budget goes to the Sheriff’s Office, and he’s a separately elected official that has a whole entire budget that he creates by himself, but we’re mandated to provide the funding to that budget, and we don’t really get a whole lot of say in what that budget looks like. Luckily, we have a Sheriff that was willing to work with us and negotiate with us on salary increases that he wanted to do, versus what we could afford.”

Alford said all the County’s budget documents are on their website, and budget meetings start in the late spring or early summer every year. She also mentioned the Citizens Academy, which typically begins in early April. 

Cornell said the Library District Governing Board voted to adopt the rolled-back rate, reducing their property tax rate from 1 mill to 0.9376 mills: “It’s not a huge amount, but every little bit helps.”