Gainesville City Commission faces $11.9 million budget deficit after second of three budget workshops for FY27

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a May 28 special meeting, the Gainesville City Commission learned that the City’s budget gap for FY27 has increased to almost $12 million.

Today’s meeting was the second in a series of three budget meetings. The first meeting, which discussed the budgets for the Charter and constitutional officers, is described here. 

“As you’ll see in this presentation, our gap is going in the wrong direction.”

Interim City Manager Andrew Persons began by saying, “As you’ll see in this presentation, our gap is going in the wrong direction. I want to make it very clear to the Commission that the City and staff are taking this very seriously. Most of our projections [for closing the gap] are coming in as not favorable… right now.” He said that after the third workshop on June 2, staff would be sitting down with Commissioners and departments to develop balancing strategies before Commissioners set the maximum property tax rate at the July 16 meeting. 

Office of Management and Budget Director Allison Teslia presented the budget estimates for Gainesville Police Department; Gainesville Fire Department, Parks; Recreation and Cultural Affairs; and Public Works.

Gainesville Police Department

Gainesville Police Department (GPD) has 381.75 positions, 12 of which are currently frozen. GPD proposed a $1.1 million increase in salaries and benefits from the General Fund and a $2.2 million increase in operating expenses, for an overall increase of $3.4 million, or 7.5% more than the FY26 adopted budget. 

The wage adjustments are based on bargaining agreements and include increases to the employer portion of health insurance costs. 

The increase in operating costs includes the replacement of four network switches, increases in the costs of software licenses, general liability insurance, and increased fleet costs. Persons said the increase in general liability insurance reflects a decision to budget that up front instead of truing it up at the end of the year. (This increase was also applied to the departments that were already discussed, leading to increased budget estimates over the numbers that were previously presented.)

GPD public records request backlog

GPD has asked for two positions to be unfrozen — a Body Worn Camera Administrator ($66k) and a Police Property & Evidence Specialist ($65k) — to address a significant backlog in responding to public records requests.

GPD Chief Nelson Moya said the public records issue is critical because they are “inundated” with public records requests, and “most of that relates to body-worn camera video.” He said the backlog “hovers around 5,000” unfilled requests (about three months), and it’s growing every week. He said the Body Worn Camera Administrator was previously a sworn position, but he wants to make it a civilian position at a lower salary. The public records requests are currently being handled by one person, and Moya said, “We just cannot keep up.”

Moya said the second position will help process evidence that is brought in by officers and is needed to prepare for court appearances.

Persons said GPD has other needs, but these two positions are “primarily compliance-based,” and other positions may need to be frozen to pay for them: “This is not the totality of what GPD needs; it’s just what we think we could do.”

Moya said downtown patrols are being staffed through overtime, and if the budget situation were different, he would be asking for 15 positions, just for downtown and Midtown patrols.

Gainesville Fire Rescue

Gainesville Fire Rescue (GFR) proposed a $1.25 million increase in salaries and benefits from the General Fund and a $796k increase in operating expenses, for an overall increase of about $2 million, or 7.0% more than the FY26 adopted budget. 

Teslia said the wage adjustments are based on bargaining agreements and increases to the employer portion of health insurance costs. Six new positions were approved in a March budget amendment and are expected to be offset by savings in overtime, and 3.5 positions in the B.O.L.D. program are being transferred to the City Manager’s Office. The Gun Violence Program Manager position, which was previously funded by ARPA, will now be funded from the General Fund.

The increase in operating costs includes fleet cost increases and general liability insurance. 

Commissioner Ed Book said, “I think we have some meaningful programs that are stretching the things that we do for public safety in a good way — things like ImpactGNV and gun violence.” He asked whether the Children’s Trust could help with funding for some of those programs.

Persons responded that the Children’s Trust has been a “funding partner for the City, particularly for the Violence Interrupters, as well as some programmatic elements.” He said he didn’t think the Children’s Trust is currently looking at gun violence funding in the next budget year, which might lead to the City taking on funding for the Violence Interrupters and some of the gun violence programming. 

Book responded, “That’s good insight, but potentially not very good news, as it relates to our budget and some of the most important work that we’re doing at the moment.” He said he hoped the Children’s Trust would reconsider that.

Commissioner Bryan Eastman said the City would need to have “tough discussions” about whether to continue providing positions and services that were previously funded by ARPA.

Persons said that in addition to the Gun Violence Program Manager position, there is also a Housing Manager position that existed “long before ARPA” but has been funded 100% through ARPA for the past year or two; he said the Housing Manager position would probably be funded by a mix of General Fund and entitlement funds. In response to a question from Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut, he said there was a third ARPA-funded position in the Office of Equity and Inclusion that was moving to the General Fund. 

Eastman brought up Governor Ron DeSantis’s proposal to exempt the first $150,000 of a home’s value from property taxes in 2027, with that amount increasing to $250,000 and then $500,000, and said that “would really take a very serious hit on all local governments.” He said staff positions are ongoing, not one-time expenses, so they should be “extra cautious about where those [positions] are, as we go through a… very uncertain time for our budgets in the near future.”

In response to a question from Chestnut, Persons said he would be able to run projections regarding the effects of those potential cuts when the preliminary tax rolls are available on June 1. 

Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs

The Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs proposed a $188k increase in salaries and benefits and a $687k increase in operating expenses, for an overall increase of about $975k, or 7.1% more than the FY26 adopted budget.

The proposed increases are for wage adjustments, increases to employer health insurance, general liability insurance, and increased fleet costs. There is no change in the number of staff positions.

Public Works 

The Public Works Department proposed a $135k increase in salaries and benefits and a $935k increase in operating expenses, for an overall increase of about $1 million, or 6.7% more than the FY26 adopted budget.

Current state of the budget

Teslia presented the current state of the expenditure side of the budget, which is now at a total of $137,736,941 for the departments that have been covered in the first two meetings, an increase of $10.9 million (8.6%) over the FY26 adopted budget for those departments. The third budget workshop on June 2 will cover Housing and Community Development, Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area, Sustainable Development, Transportation, and non-departmental budgets. The City Commission will approve the maximum property tax rate on July 16, and budget hearings will be held on September 10 and September 24.

Teslia also said five adjustments were added to all of the departments covered on May 5 and today: general insurance, fleet fixed costs, fuel, fleet variable costs, and other operating expenses, for a total of $4.2 million. Also, $59k was added to the City Commission budget for Commissioner salary increases (a CPI adjustment set by ordinance).

With the adjustments above, the budget gap for the departments covered in the May 5 meeting is $8.3 million (up from $7.7 million at the May 5 meeting), and when the departments covered today are added, the budget gap is $11.94 million. Teslia said that will drop at the June 2 meeting. 

Eastman said the core problem is that their overall spending is increasing 8.6%, but revenues are not projected to increase by that much: “We’ve seen property values kind of flatline since the pandemic, but inflation for construction and for salaries has not flatlined… We’ve not added new services, we’ve not added a new level of service that we’re providing; we’re providing [a lower] level of service, and it’s just costing more each time… I just want us to be wide-eyed about the decisions that we’re making.”

Mayor Harvey Ward said, “The point I want to make is that we pay the same inflation everybody else does… Part of what we run into here is unexpected levels of inflation and things that are hard to plan for… You can’t plan for a huge percentage increase in fuel costs, for instance.”

Ward concluded that agenda item by saying, “I want to be careful about drawing too many conclusions about the Governor’s proposal. There’s still the legislature to deal with, and then it comes before all of us at the ballot box in November, so the issue then becomes — how well do we showcase the value of tax dollars, you know, what people get for their money?”