Pasco ponders new tax to maintain county parks

As Pasco County continues to experience explosive growth, costs to maintain parks and add recreational offerings also have risen sharply because of demand.

On Wednesday, county parks officials said that by the end of the next fiscal year, there would be no funding available for any capital maintenance needs at existing parks and recreation facilities

They have proposed that the County Commission consider a new municipal services tax, which could appear on tax bills in 2025 and potentially cost $52 annually for homes with a taxable value of $300,000.

Commissioners said they know of park upkeep needs throughout their districts. They voted four to zero for their staff to move forward with an ordinance to create such a tax even though they were not sure what the funding rate should be. Commissioner Gary Bradford was absent.

“I have been waiting for this day for a couple of years,” said Commissioner Kathryn Starkey, who has been pushing for a parks tax for some time. She pointed out that there were needs throughout the county, including at athletic field that are deteriorating from overuse.

The county has fallen behind in building new parks and maintaining existing ones for years, said Commission chairperson Ron Oakley, while Commissioner Seth Weightman said he would like to see all park expenses funded by a special tax rather than property tax revenues that pay for other things, such as sheriff’s deputies and general government operations.

Starkey said the county has to make parks a priority because they “are integral to providing a quality of life.”

Annually, the cost to maintain and replace facilities from park buildings to athletic fields is $8.2 million, based on the standard of replacing them every 20 years, according to the memo county staff provided commissioners.

No additional revenue would mean no money for maintaining new athletic courts, swimming pools, boat ramps, docks, playgrounds, fencing, lighting, paving and irrigation.

Last year, Pasco commissioners approved a large increase in their impact fees for recreation, but those pay for new facilities required by growth in the county. In that case, the fees went from $892 for each single-family home built and $627 for multifamily residences to the new flat fee of $3,450 per residential unit.

A study of the county’s new parks and recreation needs, which was required before consideration of updating fees, determined they would cost $246 million in 2022 dollars. The county’s impact–fee consultants based their numbers on the 2022 county parks capital plan, which includes 19 projects across the county, including five new district parks, three major expansions of existing parks and two natural resources parks.

Keep up with Tampa Bay’s top headlines

Subscribe to our free DayStarter newsletter

We’ll deliver the latest news and information you need to know every morning.

Loading...

You’re all signed up!

Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started.

Explore all your options

Projects on the list include expanding recreational vehicle and campground facilities at Crews Lake Park, cabins at the Withlacoochee River Park, new athletic fields at the Land O’ Lakes Recreational Complex and the Wesley Chapel District Park and district parks in Connerton, Bexley and Two Rivers.

But with none of that money covering maintenance or replacement costs for the county’s existing parks, county staff said there was a gaping need.

County staff also noted that when voters were asked in 2018 to approve a $22 million bond issue to pay for the 20-year backlog of one-time parks maintenance projects, they approved it by a margin of 73%. “These bond proceeds were not intended to provide reoccurring funding for capital maintenance,” according to the memo to commissioners.

The commission vote gave direction to county staff to develop an ordinance to create a tax plan that would be presented in the next couple of months. Then a tax rate would be proposed and discussed.