- December 15, 2025
County Administrator Craig Coffey has a plan to bridge Flagler County’s current $3.2 million budget gap, and he’s taking the smorgasbord approach.
In a budget workshop Tuesday, June 19, he recommended to the Flagler County Board of County Commissioners a plan that included spending a portion of the county’s reserves, reducing staff and raising the property tax rate.
A millage increase would mean something different for every homeowner, depending on how each home value has changed since last year. But Coffey projects a .6 millage increase would result in $3.6 million of additional county revenue, or an average of about $10 per household.
“We’re (also) looking to reduce three to four employees,” he added, instead of the seven to 10 originally proposed last week. That would mean a general fund savings of about $150,000.
Combined with the reduction, Coffey also suggested using $9,000 of cash carry-forward reserve funds, bringing the total of raised and saved county funds up to $4.65 million.
Still, with a month left to prepare a final budget, Coffey’s recommendation was not given the board’s unanimous go-ahead.
“I’m not prepared to give any direction today, particularly in regard to an increase in millage rate,” Commissioner Milissa Holland said.
Without having finalized a plan to include the half-cent sales tax (which would fund a jail expansion) on the November ballot, or to impose a small county sales tax by supermajority vote, Holland preferred exhausting every option before looking to millage.
“I want to make sure we’re making all of these decisions based on the whole picture,” she added.
But other commissioners believed that, no matter what the strategy used to fill the budget gap, raised millage had to be a key component.
“I think we emptied all our piggybanks,” Commissioner Alan Peterson said. “We’ve come to the end of the road squeezing things. … I’m not prepared to dismantle county government — and that’s what I think we’re faced with. That, or massive cuts in service. … A millage increase, in my opinion, is inevitable.”
Calling a millage increase a “major policy decision,” Coffey said that, currently, Flagler has the 53rd lowest millage rate in Florida, out of 67 counties.
“If you have to increase it,” he told the board, “you still will be one of the lowest in the state. You’ll (also) be lowest of all the counties around you.”
Commission Chairwoman Barbara Revels believed millage would need to rise, as well. But she would like to see the increase partnered with “another funding mechanism,” in order to “spread the burden as wide as possible.”
According to Peterson, though, 25% to 30% of all property owned in Flagler is owned by non-Flagler residents.
“Your ad valorem tax is paid by (a lot) of people who don’t live here,” he said.
When it came to spending a portion of the reserves, however, the board reached consensus. As Commissioner Nate McLaughlin put it, “This is rainy-day money, and it’s raining.”
But Coffey didn’t recommend spending all of the county’s reserves.
“If we knew the economy would be better next year,” he said, “then I’d be talking to you more about a reserve strategy. … But the reality is, we don’t know how long this downturn is going to last.”
A meeting on the sales tax and jail expansion will be held July 2, in Government Services Building chambers. Coffey will return to the board later with options for lessening the amount of millage that might have to rise to meet the county’s shortfalls.
