Committee considers priorities for sales tax extension

Before voters decide whether to extend the county’s penny tax for another 15 years, city officials will prepare a list of infrastructure projects for funding.

By David Conway
| 1:30 p.m. November 25, 2021

Funding from the penny sales tax has in years past been used for the Robert L. Taylor Community Center, among other projects.

Sarasota
News

If you’re given $186 million to spend on a list of 70 infrastructure projects in the city over a 15-year window, how do you determine what gets top priority and what doesn’t make the cut?

That was a question posed by Don Patterson, a member of the city’s Surtax IV Ad-Hoc Committee. The committee was formed as part of the city’s efforts to prepare for a referendum on an extension of the county’s one-cent sales tax, which has been used to fund infrastructure projects in Sarasota since 1989.

At a Nov. 17 meeting of the surtax committee, the group reviewed the list of projects residents and staff have identified as potential. For now, talks are preliminary — the city doesn’t have finalized projections, and staff hasn’t refined cost estimates for all of the projects under consideration. Doug Jeffcoat, the city’s public works director, said he hopes that information will be ready in time for the committee’s January meeting.

Even without hard dollar figures, Jeffcoat said he believed the committee could provide valuable guidance by tapping into their connections within the community to let city officials know what projects are in high demand.

“I think the key for you all is not so much the dollar mindset of what it’s going to cost,” Jeffcoat said. “What projects do you feel you’re hearing from the people you know and represent — what are the projects that they want to see paid for?”

Jeffcoat said a lot of the public input the city has received so far is in line with staff’s thinking, including initiatives such as sidewalk and road improvements that have previously been funded through the penny tax. Other identified projects are new, such as support for The Bay Sarasota park and renovations at Bobby Jones Golf Club.

Although the committee will help refine a list of recommended priority projects alongside staff, the City Commission will be the final arbiter of how to allocate projected penny tax revenue. Jeffcoat said the recommendations will likely go to the commission for consideration at a public hearing in February, with the city submitting its final project list to the county by March 1. The county intends to hold a referendum on the sales tax in November 2022.