What to do with $40 million?
Hillsborough weighs how to use the money, once earmarked for a now-dead sports park.
By BILL VARIAN, Times Staff Writer
Published November 5, 2007
TAMPA - When Hillsborough County commissioners rejected a proposal last month to build a $40-million sports park, the decision touched off an immediate scramble.
Within mere breaths of the vote, several commissioners began jockeying to determine how else the sales tax money might be spent.
One, Kevin White, even proposed letting the four commissioners who represent quadrants of the county divide the money and spend it on the community needs they deem most pressing.
Now Commissioner Brian Blair is floating the first firm proposal. Rather than build one mega sports complex, he wants commissioners to set aside the money for several smaller parks and the expansion of existing ones.
Blair reasons that relatively little of the half-cent Community Investment Tax has gone toward parks since voters approved it 11 years ago, something on the order of 6 percent. Many of the county's ball and soccer fields are overrun, so the need is obvious and the money would be well-spent, he said.
"I want to make sure our children get as much of those dollars that we can possibly give them," Blair said. "I don't think the kids have proportionately gotten their fair share."
His suggestion goes to commissioners for preliminary consideration Wednesday. But it may face competing proposals from other commissioners with their own pet projects.
At least some members of the board think the money would best be left alone for a rainy day.
Local governments across the state are bracing for some form of property tax overhaul that will leave them more reliant on other revenue streams. And with the commission's approval last month of a proposal to spend $500-million in CIT money on transportation projects, the county already has committed almost all of the money the tax will generate before it sunsets in 2026.
"For me, priority No. 1 is: Let's not rush into spending what little we have left," said Commissioner Mark Sharpe. "I want to move cautiously."
Even Chairman Jim Norman, who proposed the sports park project and said he conceptually supports keeping the money in the parks system, said there should be no rush to spend.
Any proposal requires careful consideration, he said. Norman noted his own proposal underwent nearly three years of study and task force review.
"Now, in 15 minutes, we're going to spend $40-million?" Norman said. "Forty-million dollars is a large amount of money and we need to take that seriously."
County records paint a picture of a parks system that is overloaded in some places, with fields getting trampled and scheduling conflicts increasingly becoming the norm. Those records indicate that the soccer fields at J.C. Handley and Ed Radice parks, for instance, are operating at well over twice their capacity, which assumes fields need rest periods so they don't become dust pits.
But new parks require money to run and keep up, which mostly comes from property taxes in Hillsborough County. Commissioners already have unloaded many of the employees who maintain their parks in response to a first round of state-mandated property tax cuts. The responsibility has been turned over to volunteers.
Blair said he's not in a hurry to spend the money. He just wants to have up to $40-million earmarked for parks so that it can't be used for anything else. He also wants a needs-assessment study conducted so that the money goes where it's needed most, and he wants the study to evaluate ways to pay for maintaining the parks.
He thinks the county can use information gleaned from the Championship Park study, which, for instance, called for selling naming rights or other forms of advertising around ballfields. The county may be able to grant exclusive food vendor contracts to help cover operating costs.
The county also needs to look at the fees it charges to people who use its parks, possibly raising them, Blair said. A recent study by the Florida Benchmarking Consortium, a collaboration of local governments, underscored his point.
Of 17 local governments that responded, Hillsborough County parks programs rely the least on user fees. Only 2.7 percent of the parks and recreation operating costs were covered by user fees, compared with other governments that recover anywhere from 13 to 72 percent.
"There's a lot of things up in the air," Blair said. "The main thing is that we don't lose that money, because we don't want our kids hanging out on streetcorners when they could have the opportunity to participate in activities that are good for them."
It's a valid notion, said Commissioner Ken Hagan. Still, commissioners also are being asked that sales tax money be set aside for future court space and jails, he said.
Hagan, a youth sports coach like Blair, said he first wants to know how much those projects will cost and when they will be needed. He also voiced some anxiety over awarding naming-rights deals for parks, which historically have taken the names of community leaders.
"In general, there's really no question that we are busting at the seams at some of our facilities," Hagan said. "I just don't see the sense of urgency to allocate $40-million to parks given the budget climate we're in and the likely future revenue reductions we're going to have."
Bill Varian can be reached at varian@sptimes.com or 813 226-3387.