- November 16, 2025
After almost a year of debate and as the deadline to add a half-cent sales tax referendum to the 2026 ballot approaches, the Flagler County Commission is still asking if its municipalities would like to see it on a referendum.
At the Nov. 3 Flagler County Commission meeting, Commissioner Kim Carney asked if any municipalities had sent written requests for the county to place a half-cent tax referendum on the 2026 ballot. County Administrator Heidi Petito said she has not talked to the cities about the referendum because she did not have direction from the board to do so.
Chair Andy Dance reminded Carney that any direction to add the item to the 2026 ballot would need to come from the commission. But Carney said she needs to know what the municipalities want to do about a half-cent referendum.
“I, anyway, need to know what the other municipalities want,” she said. “What do they want? If they say to us, you guys have to impose a half cent sales tax, and they come forward and say that, then that's a different animal.”
But the commission has met with representatives from each municipality on the subject already. At the Aug. 27 joint meeting between Flagler Beach, Palm Coast, Bunnell, Beverly Beach and Flagler County representatives, there was overall support for if the county decided to go forward with a referendum.
At the time, Dance and Vice Chair Leann Pennington were just discussing the idea with the other municipalities. Nothing was set in stone.
Flagler Beach and Beverly Beach representatives would rather have had the County Commission vote as a board to institute the tax, but at present the board does not have the majority vote needed to pass it. Carney and Commissioner Pam Richardson and Pennington have each voiced their objections or doubts in the past.
Carney said the county will need to talk to the municipalities again but she doesn’t see how the discussion has changed.
“Unless I’m presented with a major change in the momentum for the half-cent, or how the citizens of Flagler County feel about the half-cent, [then] we’re just going to beat the thing to death again,” she said.
Dance said part of the conversation would need to include creating a well-thought out plan in presenting the referendum and getting it on the ballot in time.
“It’s a big, joint community effort if its going to be successful,” he said.
But, Dance also said, the Commission should make up its own mind on if it will move forward with a referendum before the board asks for support in writing from its cities.
Pennington said that she doesn’t know if the support is there, considering this is an election year with the boards changing over. To Carney’s point, Pennington said, having the municipalities’ support in writing would help in upcoming workshops to address the direction of beach funding.
The MSBU special taxing district in The Hammock also needs to be addressed, Pennington said, to clear up any misinformation of how much will be taxed to that area. The county created the MSBU in 2024 to help fund the maintenance of The Hammock’s beaches, though no money has been levied from that tax yet.
Funding from that MSBU would only pay for work on the beaches within that area, Petito said.
But Petito said that until the apportionment study is completed, the county won’t know how much should be levied. And, she said, that amount will also depend on other revenue sources being dedicated to the work – like a possible half-cent sales tax.
“They need to see what other funding is going to be making up that project, so that they're not apportioning the entire cost to the people that live within that area,” Petito said.
Despite the confusion on how the maintenance will be funded, the county has continued moving forward with its beach renourishment work where it can. At the Nov. 3 meeting, the Flagler County Commission approved four items on its consent agenda related to beach renourishment.
One item was an easement agreement with Flagler Beach for the construction of Reach II of the county’s Beach Management Plan. The Flagler Beach City Commission also approved the easements with Flagler County at its Oct. 23 meeting.
Reach II stretches from the north end of Flagler Beach to the southern end of Hammock Dunes, and a 2-mile stretch that will connect the Florida Department of Transportation’s Secant wall with the Reach I phase. Reach I was the 2.6-mile section of Flagler Beach surrounding the pier that was constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The county has the funds to complete the initial construction work for all three remaining Reaches, but lacks the long-term revenue source to maintain the work after the fact.
Another item approved at the Nov. 3 meeting was a $4 million cash advance from the general fund for dune restoration work. Petito said the funding will be reimbursed to the general fund once Flagler County receives the funds from a state agency.
The commission also approved amendments to two dune construction agreements. One was to add 7,500 tons of sand to a section of beach in Hammock Dunes that was lost during erosion in September.
Flagler County already has ongoing dune construction work in the area, and is just extending the work to this continuous stretch of shoreline, according to meeting documents. The cost of $418,050 is paid for by funds from Hammock Dunes.
The second approved work agreement is to replace 115,600 cubic yards of sand lost during Hurricane Milton along beaches in The Hammock.
The two areas that will receive the sand from the River to Sea Preserve to the northern limit of Washington Oaks Gardens State Park and from the south end of the park to MalaCompra Park. This project uses $9.3 million Flagler received from the Federal Emergency Management Administration, according to meeting documents.
