- July 5, 2024
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Flagler County will not be implementing a special taxing district for its beach management plan this year.
Coastal Engineering Administrator Ansley Wren-Key told the Observer in an interview that the county has decided to slow down its approach to the beach management funding plan. For now, she said, a smaller, undetermined portion of funding will be set aside from the upcoming fiscal year 2025 budget, but that will be done without adding an additional taxes.
“We want the public to know is that we're taking a step back,” Wren-Key said. “We're not trying to implement this [special taxing district] to go into effect this year.”
Most likely, any funding for the beach management plan for next year will come from a combination of the county’s general fund budget, the Tourism Development Council’s bed tax and whatever grant funding the county can qualify for, she said. Exactly how much is set aside this year will be determined as the 2025 fiscal year budget is solidified.
On June 3 and 10, Flagler County staff presented two options to implement a tiered special taxing district that ultimately had coastal residents paying more into the beach management fund. The beach management fund would cost between $7-9 million to maintain, according to the June presentations.
Right now, the county is a few years off from immediately needing the funding for its four-phased beach management plan.
Wren-key said Phase 1 of the plan — which is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project — already has its funding set aside. Likewise, she said, the funding for Phase 2 — the shoreline from 7th Street North to Varn Park — is available to the county through special legislation funding passed after Hurricanes Ian and Nicole.
Flagler County received $35 million from that legislation, Wren-Key said. Most of it will go toward Phase 2 and the design and studies needed for phase 3. Phase 3 extends from Varn Park up to Washington Oaks Park while Phase 4 will finish out the rest of the county.
The county needs funding to renourish phase 3 and design, study and implement phase four, Wren-Key said. After that, the county will focus on maintaining them.
In that long-term plan, Wren-Key said, when all of the county’s shoreline is renourished, that’s when the county will need to have access to a reliable funding source to upkeep the beaches.
Originally, County Administrator Heidi Petito said in the June 3 presentation that delaying choosing a funding mechanism could cause county residents to need to pay more or delaying the management plan.
But, Wren-Key said, “there's a lot of different options that are on the table right now.”
The funding options include potentially dedicating millage — or resident’s property taxes — during the budget sessions, implementing a half-cent sales tax, applying for state grant funding, special taxing districts and, depending on any future storms, potentially additional Federal Emergency Management Agency funding.
“We're still trying to figure it all out,” Wren-Key said.
In the two presentations pitching a special taxing district, the consultant — Stan Geberer from PFM Group Consulting, LLC, which was hired by the county to conduct the analysis — primarily focused on special taxing districts.
But no decisions will be made this budget season, Wren-Key said. The county has decided to slow down and refine exactly how much is needed and how much should come from each municipality.
“We have realized that we need to meet with all the municipalities and discuss it with them,” she said. “We're going to take this a little bit slower and move forward step by step.”
