Flagler Beach Tells County: No Joint Talks on Taxing District Unless You Revive Sales Tax for Beach Protection

The Flagler Beach City Commission has rejected a request from the County Commission to hold a joint meeting on establishing a special taxing district in the city. The tax revenue would have been earmarked for beach protection. If the county wants to talk, it should revive an earlier proposal to raise the sales tax by half a penny and appropriate that money for beach protection. Then the city would talk about an additional taxing district. 

Flagler Beach’s unequivocal message was a sharp rebuff to the three county commissioners who asked for the joint meeting–and who killed the sales tax proposal: Kim Carney, Leann Pennington and Pam Richardson. 

It was also the latest of repeatedly stated positions by the Flagler Beach City Commission: that it had already embraced a special taxing district when the county proposed it earlier this year, but only as part of a broader revenue package that included the sales tax increase as its centerpiece. Flagler Beach was “all in” for that approach in March, when it appeared that the County Commission was headed that way–before Carney and Richardson changed course and joined Pennington in opposing the sales tax. 

Without a sales tax in the mix, Flagler Beach has been just as clear that it would not endorse a special taxing district, or what would be called an MSBU–a municipal service benefit unit (so-called because the tax, levied on property owners, would theoretically be tied to a direct benefit to those property owners, such as safeguards from erosion and its associated effects on property values.) 

“We’ve had one voice on this and what our preferences [are],” Flagler Beach Commissioner Scott Spradley said at a meeting last week. “While communication is a good thing, I’m not sure about communicating about something we’ve already rejected. Now, if their other proposal was part of this workshop, that would be fine,” Sparsely said, referring to the sales tax proposal. “But they’re not coming at us with what we’ve already indicated unequivocally that we support. They’re coming with exactly what we don’t support. So I don’t support a workshop at this point. Maybe later. But not now.” The rest of his commission agreed. 

Carney brought up the idea of a joint meeting at a County Commission meeting two weeks ago. She wanted one such meeting with Flagler Beach and a separate one with Beverly Beach “to go over the details and the importance of beach maintenance and MSBU in their areas.” Carney is concerned that there’s no momentum for establishing special taxing districts in the three barrier island municipalities “to make this funding plan an 18-mile funding plan.” 

Flagler County has 18 miles of shoreline. The county has approved its own MSBU. It would apply only to the 10 miles of unincorporated shoreline–and for 2025-26, it would not generate any revenue. It would merely be a placeholder, billing property owners zero dollars. Barrier island residents last week were all but uniformly opposed to that MSBU–again, echoing Flagler Beach: not necessarily because they would not agree to a taxing district, but because they opposed it if it is imposed unilaterally, without a sales tax in the mix. 

“The clarity that I personally need moving forward has to do with both these municipalities understanding the MSBU,” Carney said. “I do not want to discuss the half-cent sales tax. They got it. We got it. We understand. The only thing in our plan right now in Flagler County is the MSBU. I need to hear from Flagler Beach and Beverly Beach what their position is on the MSBU and whether or not they’re going to be included in our engineering study as to what type of levy that amount would be. If the other municipalities do not wish to come on board, then we are looking at a northern 10 [miles] plan that we started with over a year and a half ago. That’s all I need to know.” 

Pennington felt the same way and spoke to that effect at a commission meeting attended only by her, Carney and Richardson. Commissioners Andy Dance and Greg Hansen were absent. Had they been there, they would likely have echoed Flagler Beach commissioners, seeing no purpose in holding a joint meeting on an issue Flagler Beach has clearly addressed. 

“We need to really get them nailed down into the plan. I don’t get a good feeling out of Flagler Beach one way or the other what they want us to do,”  Pennington said. 

Flagler Beach city commissioners did not hear the invitation for a joint  workshop without some disbelief–and some telling laughter in the room, too. Commissioner Eric Cooley initially led the charge against a joint meeting as he wondered what sort of MSBU the county had in mind. 

“I don’t know if there’s any real straight answer that you can get from that group. I don’t believe there is,” he said, referring to the county commission, other than the ask “for an MSTU  for an absurd amount of money, which isn’t even a real consideration.” (An MSTU is a different type of taxing district. Carney has previously said both should be considered, but when she was seeking the joint meeting, her attention was on an MSBU similar to the one the county approved, not an MSTU. An MSBU is a flat fee. An MSTU is more directly based on a property owner’s tax bill, so owners with higher valued properties would pay more.) 

Flagler Beach Commissioner Rick Belhumeur said “there seemed to be a sliver of an appetite by everyone, except for the county, for the half-cent” sales tax. He was referring to a recent joint meeting of local governments. 

“During the multi-municipality meeting, all the municipalities collectively agreed that doing a referendum for the half-cent sales tax was the desired approach,” Cooley said. He was overstating the case: The representatives at that meeting agreed to discuss it with their respective boards. There was not much enthusiasm for the approach, either, as most of the representatives knew what members of the public told them at that meeting: a referendum would fail. For now, the different municipalities have not agreed to a referendum. 

Cooley said the workshop with the county would be premature, and called it “odd.” 

“Keep in mind that part of the original proposal was an MSBU for $160,” Cooley said. “We unanimously said yes. So to have a workshop for anything else only means one thing. We know what direction this is going, and that is not the direction that I’m understanding everybody is for. They’re definitely not wanting to have a discussion about an MSBU being more fair and equitable. I can tell you that.”