Longboat moves to set taxing district for canal maintenance program

At the Longboat Key Town Commission's Nov. 12 meeting, commissioners took a big step forward in establishing a townwide canal maintenance program. 

After a discussion during the commission workshop earlier that day, commissioners voted at the meeting to establish a townwide taxing district for a new canal ad valorem millage. 

“We are not setting a millage rate. All we are doing is creating the mechanism for it to be a dependent taxing district,” Town Manager Howard Tipton said. “The rest of this will fall into place through the budget process.”

Town staff must set up the taxing district before Dec. 31 for it to appear on next year’s tax roll. Commissioners and staff don’t need to figure out the exact method yet, but they will need to before the beginning of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2025. 

The final vote to set up the district was 5-1 with District 4 Commissioner Debra Williams being the only nay. District 5 Commissioner Sarah Karon was absent.

“I agree that the canals need to be addressed,” Williams said before the vote. “I just don’t agree with the funding formula that’s been presented to us today.”

Longboat Key town commissioners agree that a canal maintenance program is necessary, especially since some staff memos show a maintenance program has been in discussion for nearly 30 years. 

But how to fairly allocate costs of the dredging project is still up for debate among town staff and commissioners. After a discussion at the workshop, there was no consensus on how to do it. 

Mayor Ken Schneier emphasized at the start of the discussion that it boils down to how much this will cost someone living on a canal versus not. 

“The other issue is, how does the cost of this program get fairly allocated among members of the community,” Schneier said. “And I think that’s where there is a real debate.” 

Similar to how the town’s utility undergrounding project was funded, there are direct and indirect benefits to town residents from the canal maintenance program. For the undergrounding project, there was the Gulf of Mexico Drive portion of the project and the neighborhood portion. 

As the program was presented, the town’s canals are split into three types: general, shared and direct benefit. 

Ad valorem taxing by all residents would fund general benefit canals, direct benefit would be funded by non-ad valorem taxing from properties within a given group and shared benefit would be a combination method. 

In-depth discussions about a canal maintenance program have been ongoing with the town commission for about a year. Last year, commissioners were left confused by a complicated funding method and directed staff to look for ways to decrease costs. 

This led to staff hiring engineering firm First Line Coastal to conduct updated canal surveys which allowed staff to limit the scope of the project to focus only on canals that needed work done rather than doing work on every canal. 

As the project stands now, the initial dredge cost to re-baseline the town’s canals would cost around $4.58 million. All in, the project cost was estimated at around $9.25 million, which includes environmental mitigation costs of about $3.6 million and adjustment for 2028. 

After that, there would be a maintenance program developed for the town's canals.

Dredging up debate

Still uncertain about how to fairly fund the project, town commissioners voiced their opinions to shed light on the necessity of the project. 

“I think it comes down to if you believe the canals are an asset for the island or not,” Vice Mayor Mike Haycock said in support of the project. “If they’re an island asset, to me, they’re like roads, they’re like beaches, they’re like utilities. We ought to maintain them.”

Haycock said he was content with the funding method as it was. This funding method would include funding $1.85 million of the project through 62% ad valorem tax and 38% non-ad valorem tax. 

District 2 Commissioner Penny Gold said she sees canal maintenance as a benefit to everyone on the island, even those who may not go boating frequently. 

“I think we all take advantage of the bay,” Gold said. “It helps all of our property values when we have a clean, usable waterway…admiring the bay and a healthy bay comes from maintenance.”

Williams voiced her opposition to the funding methodology and pushed to find a more equitable way to share the cost. 

For example, the ad valorem taxing for residents would include a combination of the general benefit canals and 50% of the shared benefit canals.

In an example that was provided, a property valued at $1 million taxed with a millage of 0.1256 would pay $125.60 for the annual ad valorem assessment. A property valued at $3.5 million would pay $439.60. 

“If you don’t have access, if you don’t have a boat, you’re never ever using this benefit that it provides,” Williams said. “And I understand that it needs to be done and people certainly want it, … so I’m trying to figure out what’s the fair thing to do because that doesn’t seem like it’s quite fair.”

Clarification: This story has been updated online to include the full initial cost (including mitigation and adjustment for 2028) to be $9.25 million.