Palm Coast Council Considers Deep Cuts Affecting Cops, Code Enforcement and Humane Society

The Palm Coast City Council meeting Tuesday turned into a slaying of sacred cows as politics and realism clashed. 

The council is reconsidering its commitment to the School Board with the possible elimination of a school resource deputy it has funded for a decade and a half. It is considering cutting the sheriff’s request for nine more deputies down to five. It is questioning whether to even have a supplemental contract with the sheriff. It is considering reducing its code enforcement officers’ ranks by half and recalibrating raises. It is considering cutting its contribution to the Flagler Humane Society. And it is leaving the way open for further, surprise cuts. 

This is what happens as the upending of local government budgets looms with the possible voter approval this fall of the homestead amendment that would sharply reduce tax revenue. 

None of those initiatives are yet approved, and some may not be as the council works toward a budget for the next fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. But the framework the council approved Tuesday means that some of those initiatives may have to be approved, if at a heavy price and through tensions that became apparent between the council and the administration Tuesday evening. 

“We will just need to know additional cuts that may need to be made by service level expectation reductions,” City Manager Mike McGlothlin said, “as well as we may have to revisit SAP and remove some of those projects.” SAP is the council’s Strategic Action Plan, its annual goals and expectations. 

City Council member Theresa Pontieri immediately put that burden on the manager and the administration, saying she’d already laid out suggestions last week. “To say that we need to adjust our service levels,” she said, “I think that staff and you, city manager, need to go back and look at the budget and say, okay, this is what we can propose to do, and then come back to City Council and make some of those proposals.” 

“I just want to make sure that all the expectations are realistic,” McGlothlin retorted. “There is no money to find. We have not misplaced any funds. So that’s where we need the policy of the service level reductions if we’re going to go deeper than what we’re already talking about.”

The council voted 4-1 to adopt a maximum allowable property tax rate for next year of $4.2296 per $1,000 in taxable value, or $1,057 for a $300,000 house with a $50,000 homestead exemption. Pontieri, who wants no increase in the tax rate, was opposed. 

The rate is provisional. By September, when the council adopts the final rate in a pair of hearings, it has the option of lowering it, but not raising it. 

The current tax rate is $4.0893 per $1,000 in taxable value. The rollback rate is the rate at which the city government would take in the same amount of revenue next year as it did this year, excluding revenue generated by new construction. Because property values declined for the first time in 14 years, the rolledback rate would actually be a rolled-up rate of 4.1389. Even at that increased rate, the city would have to cut $1 million from the proposed budget. If the council were to maintain the existing rate of 4.0893, it would have to cut $1.6 million from the proposed budget. 

That proposed budget does not include $3.3 million in needs, including the nine deputies, a cost-of-living raise for all employees, and several additional positions scattered through the city’s departments. The city has a $2 million carry-over balance from unspent money in this year’s budget. That money may only be used for one-time expenditures. 

“Let’s give ourselves decision space,” Council member Charles Gambaro said, “to see if we can get to the 4.0893. I think it’s important to preserve that decision space, because some of the ideas that we’ve discussed here, they may not be feasible. And then, what if they’re not? Do we lock ourselves into a certain millage rate that’s really going to reduce service levels to a point? I think we still need to have those continued discussions.”

The proposed general fund budget for fiscal year 2027 is $72 million, an increase of $4.6 million, or 6.8 percent, compared to this year, with the largest increases in public safety at 48 percent and public works street maintenance at 20 percent. The public safety increase does not include the sheriff’s request for an additional nine deputies at a cost of a little over $1 million. 

Last week Pontieri suggested that code enforcement go from a patrol-based system where 75 percent of complaints are generated by code enforcement officers to a system where code enforcement would only respond to residents’ complaints, which currently account for 25 percent of the workload. Community Development Director John Zobler said if the city took that approach, it could reduce code enforcement employees by half, or 12 employees. 

“I can’t justify cutting that many people from code enforcement. I think it should be across-the-board cuts,” Mayor Mike Norris said. He favored a reduction in the tax rate to 4.0893 and cutting $1.6 million from the proposed budget. 

Gambaro questioned why the city has been paying for a school resource deputy. “ I don’t understand why we’re paying for that position,” he said. He wants to end that funding now. (The city started paying for deputy under City Manager Jim Landon, reasoning that when the deputy was not in school, the deputy would be an additional patrol on Palm Coast streets. In 2015, then-Council member Bill McGuire wanted to end that funding. (See: “Palm Coast Council Member Bill McGuire Wants End to City Funding of School Deputy.”)

Pontieri said if the proposed amendment to raise the homestead exemption passes, “I would advocate that they should pick up that last deputy,” because the schools won’t be directly affected by the amendment. 

“I don’t think this is necessarily our responsibility,” Council member Ty Miller said. “I think we have separate budgets, and we’re dipping into our budget to pay for something that’s somebody else’s budgetary line item.” 

The discussion shifted to the sheriff’s request for nine additional deputies as part of the Palm Coast contract. 

“We have to understand that these nine deputies-that’s not a one-year expense,” Council member Dave Sullivan said. “Next year, those nine deputies will be there, and so that expense will continue. And we do have the threat of this amendment coming. I don’t know what to do, but I’m just saying that as far as the money we have, if we’re going to support this cause for the nine deputies, we have to do something about the millage rate to handle that.”

Sullivan raised a further possibility: to end Palm Coast’s paying for policing separately from the county. 

“That’s certainly something that the city and the county boards can get together and discuss with the sheriff’s office,” Pontieri said. 

Remarkably, Sullivan dismissed Miller’s correct assertion that “this city has chosen a specific service level above and beyond.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Sullivan said. “I think that’s a comment that was made. I don’t think that’s in hard fact.” But the annual contract is the hard fact: it’s in writing (“Whereas, the city desires that sheriff furnish additional law enforcement services to its citizens within the jurisdictional boundaries of the city…”) 

“No. The sheriff is responsible to provide police support for the city. Period,” Sullivan said. “And he has to do that at a point where we’re not going to have an increase in crime. Because he touts the fact that we have a 40 percent reduction in crime, but we still need more deputies. So I support the police totally, and so forth. But I think as this contract with the sheriff gets bigger and bigger, I really think we need to carefully look at it.”

“I agree with you on that point,” Miller said. “There’s a point where the ROI on it doesn’t make sense.” (ROI is return on investment.) “We pumped in, what, 18 new deputies in the last two years? And so I think it’s appropriate to look at some of the deputies that we’re also funding that maybe we shouldn’t be.” He was referring to the school deputy. 

Pontieri said the city was at the end of a three-year agreement to add nine deputies each year, based on a needs study. She was for funding five deputies now, rather than nine. “They said that they’re going to do another study, a follow-up study next year,” she said. “Let them do that study. Look at where our current population is and see do they in fact still need the [additional] four, or do we not need to fund any deputies for a few years? I understand, Councilman Sullivan, what you’re saying about the contract. Perhaps at one point–where does it stop or does it end, right? But it ends with this, according to what we agreed to with them.”

That would still cost the city $820,000–or $660,000 if the city ended its support for the school deputy, something Pontieri would not support. 

In other budgetary changes, the city projects reducing its allocation to the Flagler Humane Society by $140,000, which would be a severe blow to the society, which is seeking an increased contribution from the city. The city pays $156 per animal the society handles on its behalf. The society is requesting $392 per animal. Cutting $140,000 would cover the city’s need for two additional employees in public works (a $133,200 cost, not including needed vehicles). 

“I will not vote to increase the millage,” Pontieri said. “The state of Florida is telling us to reduce government spending, and what do we do? We turn around and we increase the millage, and I’m not going to get on board with that.” She again pointed to a different code enforcement approach as one way to cut costs, saying it would not be a reduction in service since residents would control where code enforcement officers are sent. The sheriff, too, could also pick up some of the code enforcement duties, she said. Pontieri is running for a County Commission seat in a Republican primary that will draw on the most conservative, anti-tax voters in the county. 

“I don’t like the idea of cutting 12 employees ever. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to cut employees. But this isn’t an ideal world. We don’t have an endless budget,” Pontieri said. “My point is, there’s money to be found. We just have to make adjustments to the budget to get there.”

She had the mayor’s–and the council’s–support. “I do not feel comfortable raising the millage rate at all,” Norris said. “I’m perfectly happy with leaving the max millage at what we set it at last week, and that’s our max mill. All negotiations and all budget maneuvers to get where we need to be to get it as low as possible will be coming forward, but that would be our max.”