I wrote a bit of a rant about this but I wanted to spell out for anyone who actually wants to understand what the facts are.

I am not interested in re-hashing past budgets. What I am referencing are current facts. Which start with the approved budget for fiscal year 2024 (which started on October 1, 2023) and the approved 5 year Capitol Improvement Project Plan.

Below is a table of the approved plan.

Fire Station	FY 2024	FY 2025	FY 2026	FY 2027	FY 2028	Total (in millions)
Fire Station 24	$0	$1,600,000	$15,959,000	$0	$0	$17,559,000
Fire Station 6	$5,750,00	$1,545,000	$19,359,288	$0	$0	$26,654,288
Fire Maintenance & Supply	$12,000,000	$1,272,000	$20,192,000	$0	$0	$33,464,000
Fire Station 9	$650,000	$0	$1,962,000	$18,185,000	$0	$20,797,000
Fire Station 10	$0	$0	$1,765,800	$16,386,500	$0	$18,152,300
Total Commitment	$20,000,000	$18,776,000	$43,279,088	$34,571,500	$0	$116,626,588

On December 7th a motion was made to draft a “reimbursement resolution” for all 5 projects, $116 million, to come back on January 11, 2024. It was approved unanimously.

The cost to borrow $116 million, based on the assumption of a single bond issuance at 4.5% interest for 30 years is approximately $100 million. So now the cost of these 5 projects nearly doubles. $216 million for 4 new fire stations and relocation of supply and maintenance.

So getting back to facts. $20 million is already ear-marked for this fiscal year. It’s “paid for.” So really we should only need to find funding for $96 million. Could City Council find another $18 million in next years budget? Probably? Then we would only need to find funding for $78 million and not until 2026.

But that wasn’t what was approved. What was approved was to signal intent to borrow the full $116 million.

The first question I keep coming back to is if we are now indicating we are going to bond money already approved in this year’s budget, what happens to that money? Why would we borrow $20 million plus interest if we’ve already found room in the budet? Wasn’t that the whole purpose of the budget process? Wouldn’t the time to discuss bonding those costs have been before cutting other projects?

And the elephant in the room is how is this going to be paid for? $7 million a year for 30 years. $216,000,000. City Council voted down the mayor’s proposal of a one mil increase in property taxes last year. They also voted down a last minute proposal of a partial increase for “public safety.”

It seems to me the city would be better served if Tampa City Council took their time to determine what actually needs to be funded FY25-28 for Tampa Fire Rescue CIP and then present that along with a proposal for a modest milage increase specifically earmarked for TFR capital improvements.

They could pass a resolution indicating their intent to the admin leaving plenty of time between then and the budget adoption in October for the public to offer feedback. My take away from the previous budget fight over the milage increase was how the budget was presented. People wanted to clearly understand where their money would be going.

If the proposed budget is presented in a way to show “if we raise property taxes by .15 mil that $7M a year goes towards paying for these 4 big projects over the next 30 years. If we don’t we need find $96M in the budget over the next 3 years” I believe residents would support it.

A lot of the timing in this plan hinges on the ability of the city to find property to relocate maintenance and supply. Borrowing money now will not get anything built any faster. Nothing has changed as far as the timeline. Neither the Fire Chief nor the administration are recommending expediting it.

I am encouraging you to email Council and ask them to vote against the reimbursement resolution. Ask them to think this through as part of the next budget process.