Is the Rays Stadium in Tampa’s FY27 Budget?

The top question I had prior to budget presentation was “Will the mayor include Community Investment Tax (CIT) funds for the Rays in the 5 year Capital Improvement Program (CIP)?” After some digging, the answer is there’s no line item in the budget that says “Rays Stadium” or even “public facilities”. There is however $26.2 million set aside in Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) including $23M in the Grants and Aids Budget Reserve fund. All said there is $59.5M in reserve CIT funds in the 3 year forecast with $52.M in the Grants and Aids Budget Reserve Fund. A fund every prior use (FY23-26) was a small placeholder reserve in an operating fund.

There are actually 2 buckets of funds derived from two different half-cent sales taxes. One administered by the state and distributed to cities and counties and the the Hillsborough County collected CIT. The half-cent tax from the state can be used for general spending, the CIT is exclusive to capital improvement projects.

Under Special Revenue Funds Major Revenues for the FY2027 CIT the analysis says “revenues are expected to increase 43.8% when compared with the FY2026 budget due to economic conditions.” Compared to last year’s analysis:

“FY2026 Community Investment Tax revenues are expected to decrease when compared with the FY2025 budget partially attributable to unstable economic conditions and decreased consumer spending.”

In 2025 the city collected $34.8M in CIT. In 2026 the city estimated $26.6M. For FY27 they project $38.3M.

However under General Government Major Revenues the analysis for the other half-cent sales tax revenue projections tells a different story.

“9.5% lower than budget and are expected to remain flat for FY2027. This is primarily due to elimination of sales tax on office and commercial space rentals and leases and inflation impacting business and consumer spending.”

Hard to understand how 2 half-cent sales taxes have such divergent analysis. Sure one is collected state wide and distributed to cities and counties and one is specifically Hillsborough County but the “economic conditions” in the county aren’t that different than the rest of the state. Both taxes are sales taxes. It’s illogical to say one is going to grow 43% and the other is performing 10% lower than expected.

What the analysis doesn’t mention is that the renewed CIT cut the school district from 25% to a 5% share so there’s 20% more of CIT funds to distribute. Tampa Monitor estimates that 20% cut is more than $500M over the 15 years the tax was approved for using the city and county’s projected 3% growth. Depending on which analysis you read though, it could be less. The MOU approved by the city and county pledges $417M in CIT funds for the Rays stadium.