Gainesville City Commission approves FY26 budget and property tax increase of 0.3 mills on first reading

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

Updated on September 17 to clarify that the increased property tax millage will raise an additional $9.4 million.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a special budget meeting on September 10, the Gainesville City Commission approved the amended Fire Assessment fee and Schedule of Fees, Rates, and Charges; they also approved the first readings of the FY26 budget and property tax rates.

City Manager Cynthia Curry explained that the meeting was the first public hearing to adopt the budget, and the second meeting will be on September 24.

Budget presentation

Executive Chief of Staff Cintya Ramos said that the certified taxable value of parcels in the city is just under $12 billion, an increase of 9.1% over last year, and the proposed property tax increase of 0.3 mills to 6.7297 mills will generate $77.5 million in revenue, an increase of $9.4 million over the previous year. The proposed property tax rate is 6.7297 mills, 12.27% higher than the rolled-back rate of 5.9944 mills.

Click here for the full budget presentation.

The Fire Assessment fee is calculated to recoup 53% of the assessable fire budget and will generate an estimated $12.6 million in revenue. The rates for next year will generate 2.6% more revenue than last year. 

General Fund Transfer/General Services Contribution

Ramos said the General Fund Transfer (also referred to as the General Services Contribution) from GRU is budgeted at $7.2 million, taking into consideration the reduced revenue for streetlights and legal costs related to HB 1645. Ramos pointed out that the City Commission reduced the General Fund Transfer (GFT) from $34.3 million in FY23 to $15.3 million in FY24; then the GRU Authority reduced it by $6.8 million a year for 10 years, based on their calculation that the City Commission had taken $68 million more than GRU’s profit over the preceding years. The GFT is now set at $8.5 million, and the Authority has deducted expenses from that, leaving approximately $7.2 million to be transferred to the City. 

Ramos showed a chart that compared the GFT set by the GRU Authority to a formula adopted by the City in FY24 (which would result in an FY26 GFT of $17.5 million) and calculated that the reduction “created a structural revenue deficit” of $17.8 million in the General Fund over fiscal years FY25 and FY26. Ramos said the City adjusted for that loss in revenue by cutting positions and increasing the property tax rate.

Ramos said the GFT was the second-largest revenue source for the City in FY23 (22.2% of all revenues), and now it’s the sixth-largest revenue source (4.4% of all revenues).

Property tax rate

The City increased its property tax rate by 0.9297 mills in FY24, held the rate there in FY25, and will increase it by 0.3 mills for FY26. Ramos said the City eliminated 125.5 position in FY24, eliminated 36 positions and “unbudgeted” an additional 23 positions in FY25, and eliminated 11 positions and “unbudgeted” 30.75 positions for FY26.

Budget

The City’s FY26 Proposed Budget for All Funds is $466,872,174, 1.7% higher than last year. The FY26 Proposed General Fund Budget is $162,039,596, 4.3% higher than last year.

Vote on Fire Assessment fee

Commissioner Ed Book made a motion to approve the Fire Assessment fee, and there were multiple seconds. The motion passed 6-1, with Commissioner Casey Willits in dissent; Willits has consistently voted against the new methodology for calculating Fire Assessment fees since it was adopted, arguing that it penalizes multi-family residential buildings.

Vote on Schedule of Fees, Rates, and Charges

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut made a motion to approve an update to the City’s Schedule of Fees, Rates, and Charges, and Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker seconded it. The motion passed unanimously.

Vote on first reading of property tax rate

Commissioner Bryan Eastman made a motion to adopt the property tax rate of 6.7297 mills, and Willits seconded the motion. The motion passed 6-1, with Duncan-Walker in dissent.

Vote on first reading of the budget

When the Commission moved to the approval of the FY26 budget, Commissioner Ed Book brought up a request from the City Auditor to make an adjustment to the budget, and Curry said the Auditor had requested an additional $40,000 for an audit for 2026, “but it has not been incorporated into the budget at this time.”

City Auditor Stephen Mhere admitted his request was “11th-hour,” but he said he had realized “with the staff that I have, I will not be able to achieve the goals that I have with respect to audit coverage, because we are freezing a Senior Auditor position.” He said that without that position, he would need to outsource some audits to consulting firms, but his budget for that is only $2,000.

Book said he would support increasing the City Auditor’s budget by $40,000, and Curry said if the Commission voted to do that, the money would come from the Budget Stabilization Fund (excess reserves in the General Fund), or she would have to reduce the budget in other areas. 

Curry said she didn’t recommend using the Budget Stabilization Fund to fund ongoing operational expenses, “so the more we go into [the Budget Stabilization Fund] to fund salaries or to fund operational expenses, we’re really not following the budget policy.” She said another option would be to amend the budget once they’re in the FY26 fiscal year.

Commissioner James Ingle said he didn’t have a problem spending the $40,000, but he was “a little concerned about adding it in at this point in the process.”

Mhere said he didn’t need the money on October 1: “It can be any other time during the year.”

Chestnut supported giving him the money but wanted to wait until the beginning of 2026 to put it in a budget amendment. Eastman also supported a future budget amendment. 

Ward said the Audit Committee is scheduled to review the audit schedule in a few weeks, “and that is an opportunity for first the Audit Committee and then the full Commission to review the audit schedule and the workload on the Auditor… I would prefer to think about this in a future quarter as an amendment… I’m going to vote for whatever budget we can get passed this evening,… but that is where I stand on it.”

Eastman made a motion to approve the budget as presented, and Duncan-Walker seconded the motion. 

Willits said he appreciated saving 10 jobs in RTS by bringing paratransit services in-house, “good union jobs… I have been a proponent of… having government capacity to do work, not always to farm it out… But I trust that our workers at RTS can and will do great work transporting people all across our community, and so saving those jobs means a lot to me… And I’m also very excited about the use of tree mitigation funds to beef up our urban forestry program to make sure that they have the staff they need to do a little more expansive work and move things along… We should celebrate some of those wins amongst some tough times, where we do have some cuts to total FTE.”

The motion to approve the budget passed unanimously.

The second and final budget hearing will be on September 24.