9/22/26 – Final Budget Adoption Hearing w/Thursday workshops and land use applications

Tuesday evening at 5:01 P.M. Council will be holding presumably the final budget adoption hearing. I think I’m all talked out on the budget. I have no idea what exactly they will be voting on beyond adopting Mayor Jane Castor’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2027 and the 5-year Capital Improvement Program. There are placeholders in the agenda for “staff to present a proposal related to the CIP, CIT and the General Fund Deferral for FY27” and “Legal Staff to present an addendum based on the draft resolutions submitted by Chair Clendenin to the FY27 Budget” but neither of those items have any documents associated. Same for 4 other items on the agenda. Item 8, the actual ordinance adopting the budget, includes some reference documents including Chair Alan Clendenin’s draft resolutions. I did not find anything currently in Onbase that actually modifies the mayor’s budget as presented.

I emailed the full council Thursday evening for a comment after the draft agenda was published about the lack of final documents for public evaluation and didn’t get a response.

Speaking of budgets and requests for comment, I published a post the Friday before last (it inadvertently carried the 9/10 post date from the original draft) that I received a response on from Chief Financial Officer Dennis Rogero. I’ve updated the post with his full statement.

After that, Council sits for a 3 item workshop agenda Thursday morning and return that evening for a full agenda of land use application hearings — both future land use and alcohol sales. Before touching on the workshop, and as has become custom, no direct comment on the evening agenda items, just a reminder that the site includes a version of the agenda with a map of the land use items if you want to check if anything is near your neighborhood. Also, I’ve had a lot of people ask about Variance Review Board agendas. I’d been keeping an eye out for them to be added to Onbase and it turns out, they are published on the city’s website on a page under the Development Coordination Department. At least since January. I didn’t see an archive of the agendas prior to that. Which means, Tampa Monitor will be including a copy of VRB agendas with the same type of map for council agendas and, as also requested, you can sign up for Keyword Notifications that will include VRB items, including neighborhood parsing. That should all be in place by next week.

Workshop

Item 1 is a discussion about fees — construction, development and historic preservation to be specific. The fee study was released earlier this summer and I wrote about it then. The study recommended phasing in the increases starting October 1, 2026 but staff indicated they weren’t prepared to move forward, requesting a workshop after the adoption of the FY27 budget.

Item 2 is “Council to discuss the Charter Review Commission” which includes the remediated final report from the commission. One of the bolder ideas put forth is a proposal to establish an office of Inspector General. I’m pleased to share that friend of the Tampa Monitor and Charter Review Advisory Commission member Bobby Creighton took some time to help explain the proposal and how it compares to IG offices elsewhere in Florida.

Finally, item 3 is for council to discuss their salaries for the incoming council. No one wants to vote for a raise for themselves and it was difficult enough for them to agree to the salary adjustment of $74,000 approved for FY25. Prior to that, they were making $55,000. The argument for (which I have supported) paying council members a reasonable salary is it’s a full time job now and unless you only want the wealthy holding the position, it needs to allow someone to afford to live in the city and not need a side hustle. Or two. I’ve suggested they just tie it to Area Median Income as AMI is a benchmark they use for “affordable” housing all of the time. What level of affordable housing do you want your council member eligible for?