Sarasota's $2.5 Billion Budget Crisis: How Two Commissioners Broke Every Promise They Made to Taxpayers
A Sarasota County Facts investigation into the fiscal record, developer ties, and stealth tax proposals that have a bipartisan coalition demanding answers from Chairman Joe Neunder and Commissioner Mark Smith.
*By Sarasota County Facts Research Team
SARASOTA COUNTY — When Dr. Joe Neunder ran for Sarasota County Commission in 2022, he sold voters a fiscal conservative's dream. His campaign platform, still visible on the Sarasota GOP website, reads like a manifesto for smaller government: "Government revenues are at an all-time high. County officials can ease the pain of inflation by cutting taxes for all Sarasota residents. I will pursue broad-based tax cuts and insist on fiscally conservative budgets so Sarasota County residents can keep more of their money."
Mark Smith, an architect and Siesta Key business leader who won his District 2 seat by just 373 votes over Democrat Fredd Atkins that same year, promised similar restraint. Traffic, water quality, and affordable housing would be his priorities.
Three years later, the promises are in ashes. The fiscal record speaks for itself — and it is devastating.
THE NUMBERS THAT TELL THE STORY
The Sarasota County Commission, with Neunder as chairman, approved a $2.5 billion budget for fiscal year 2026 — a spending increase exceeding 20% over the prior year. To balance the books, the commission voted an FY2026 budget that appropriates $41.7 million from the General Fund's reserves, over the lone dissenting vote of Commissioner Tom Knight, a former three-term Sarasota County Sheriff who called the reliance on reserves "a dangerous precedent."
Knight's warning was prophetic. By the county's own projections — published in official budget workshop documents — Sarasota faces a $31.6 million deficit by fiscal year 2028. That gap balloons to $40.8 million by 2029 and $39.2 million by 2030.
BY THE NUMBERS: The county's own budget projections show deficits of $31.6M (FY2028), $40.8M (FY2029), and $39.2M (FY2030). Revenue grew just 3.5% in FY2025 while expenses grew 27.8%. Source: Sarasota County Budget Workshop Documents, FY2026 Adopted Budget Resolution.
The spending binge includes more than 100 new full-time government positions added in a single budget cycle, bringing total county employment to 4,151. The crown jewel of the construction boom is a new four-story, 122,000-square-foot Class A Sarasota County Administration Center near Fruitville Road — a $75.1 million appropriation (Project 83203), approved 5-0 in January 2023 with Commissioner Smith seconding (Res. 2023-022) and funded substantially by bonds. According to the project's general contractor, the facility includes an Access Sarasota television studio, a wellness center, new county commission chambers, a press room, and a parking garage. (The project predates the current commission, but the financing and approvals that advanced it were voted under their watch, with no objection.)
As of December 2024, the county had 252 active capital improvement projects with a combined budget of $2.35 billion, according to records obtained through a public records request by the Sarasota News Leader.
THE SHERIFF'S BUDGET: NEUNDER'S REFUSAL TO ASK HARD QUESTIONS
Perhaps no single line item illustrates the commission majority's unwillingness to exercise fiscal discipline better than the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office budget. General Fund public-safety spending — the Sheriff's office is its largest piece — grew $76.5 million over five years (General Fund public safety, CAFR FY2021–FY2025), nearly 59%.
When the commission held its fifth budget workshop in August 2025, Knight — the only commissioner with direct experience running the Sheriff's Office — proposed that the board follow Manatee County's lead and ask Sheriff Hoffman to trim his request by a modest 3%.
Chairman Neunder shut it down.
"I don't see anybody else here at the moment that really wants to talk about it," Neunder said, according to the Suncoast Searchlight's reporting, and moved the discussion along.
Public Defender Larry Eger spent less than three minutes presenting his roughly 10% budget increase. Not a single commissioner pressed him to pare it back. "With that, I'm going to drop the mic," Eger quipped as he left.
Commissioner Teresa Mast told her colleagues the commission needed to be "more like a thermostat" — dictating outcomes rather than passively measuring them.
Knight was blunter: "I think if we don't start preparing for it now, then we're just kicking the can and we're going to make it harder on ourselves in the future."
Former Commissioner Joe Barbetta, who left office in 2014 when the county budget had just surpassed $1.1 billion with about 2,100 employees, called the current spending "outrageous."
BY THE NUMBERS: Sarasota County's bonded debt nearly doubled — up 76% — from $630M to $1.11B between FY2022 and FY2025 — the largest three-year increase in the county's modern record. Total liabilities grew from $1.12B to $1.96B. Source: Sarasota County CAFR FY2022 and FY2025, audited by CliftonLarsonAllen LLP.
FOLLOW THE MONEY: THE DEVELOPER PIPELINE
The spending spree does not occur in a vacuum. It unfolds against a backdrop of documented financial ties between Sarasota County's largest developers and the commissioners who approve their projects.
An April 2025 investigation by the Florida Trident revealed that Rex Jensen — the mega-developer behind the massive Lakewood Ranch communities and the 13,000-home Hi-Hat Ranch project east of I-75 — along with the companies he controls, contributed $74,000 to individual commissioners and supporting political action committees over just the last two local election cycles.
Jensen, known within county government circles as "T Rex" (though not to his face), has been documented pressuring county staff through aggressive emails and direct calls to County Administrator Jonathan Lewis when development decisions don't go his way. Internal emails obtained by the Florida Trident show Jensen's team pushed county staff to conduct stormwater reviews before the legally required rezoning process was completed — and staff initially resisted before being overruled.
Then there is the Hi-Hat Ranch deal itself — the most illuminating case study in how developer money translates into taxpayer liability. The 10,000-acre mega-development, the largest in Sarasota County history, required access from Bee Ridge Road. Despite a 2021 ordinance requiring the developer to cover the full cost of road improvements, taxpayers were put on the hook for approximately half of a $28 million road-widening project.
The Florida Trident's investigation uncovered that former Commissioner Al Maio — who left the commission in November 2022 — drafted the deal terms on a whiteboard during a private December 2024 meeting with county staff. Records show Maio was copied on more than 160 emails about Hi-Hat Ranch and participated in over five hours of recorded phone calls with the County Administrator.
Florida law bars former commissioners from lobbying county officials for compensation for two years after leaving office. Maio refused multiple requests from the Florida Trident to answer questions about his involvement.
Separately, public records reflect that Al Maio's son, Adam Maio — who serves as vice chair of the Sarasota County Planning Commission — performed construction and remodeling work at County Administrator Jonathan Lewis's residence.
Sarasota County Facts reports these facts as documented in public records and in reporting by the Florida Trident. Sarasota County Facts has not established and does not allege a connection between Al Maio's involvement in the Hi-Hat Ranch matter and Adam Maio's construction work at the County Administrator's residence.
On January 28, 2025, the commission voted 4-1 to advance Maio's drafted deal. Commissioner Tom Knight was the sole dissenting vote.
After the Florida Trident published its investigation on February 11, 2025, the commission reversed course within 24 hours — voting unanimously to halt the Hi-Hat agreement. More than 60 public commenters packed the chamber demanding accountability.
BY THE NUMBERS: Developer Rex Jensen and entities he controls contributed $74,000 to commissioners' campaigns and PACs over two election cycles. The Hi-Hat Ranch road deal shifted approximately $14M in road costs from the developer to taxpayers, despite a 2021 ordinance requiring the developer to cover the full cost. Source: Florida Division of Elections campaign finance records; Florida Trident investigation, February 2025.
THE STEALTH TAX: WHEN YOU CAN'T BALANCE THE BOOKS
Having spent beyond their means and drained the reserve tank, the commission is now eyeing new revenue sources — including one designed to never appear on your property tax bill.
Budget workshop materials prepared for a February 26, 2026 session outline two major revenue proposals. The first is a Public Service Tax — a levy of up to 10% on electricity, natural gas, propane, and water service that would appear as an added charge on monthly utility bills, not on property tax notices. At the full 10% allowed under state law, the cost could reach approximately $144 per year for a typical Sarasota household, according to WGCU's analysis.
The second proposal is the creation of Municipal Services Tax Units for the Sheriff and libraries, which would appear as separate line items on property tax bills.
Former Commissioner Christine Robinson, now Executive Director of the Argus Foundation, was blunt in her assessment: "It took a majority of the county commission to get staff to bring back budget cuts, but then we get MSTUs and a Public Service Tax without anyone asking for it. Government mentality has to change. We don't have a revenue problem — it's increased over 30% in four years. We have a spending problem."
Commissioner Neunder told the Florida Trident he is "not in favor of new taxes on residents." His voting record tells a different story.
THE PRIMARY CHALLENGES: ACCOUNTABILITY IS COMING
Both Neunder and Smith now face primary challengers in the August 18, 2026 Republican primary.
Jim DeNiro, a retired Sarasota Police Department sergeant with a 30-year career in criminal investigations, narcotics enforcement, and emergency management, has announced his candidacy against Neunder in District 4. "Sarasota County families are paying close attention to rising costs, and county government should do the same," DeNiro said.
Kristina Sargent has filed to challenge Smith in District 2.
THE HYPOCRISY GAP
What makes the fiscal record particularly damaging is the distance between how Neunder and Smith sold themselves to voters and how they have actually governed.
Neunder promised: "I will pursue broad-based tax cuts and insist on fiscally conservative budgets."
What Sarasota residents got: the single largest budget in the county's modern record, a 20%-plus spending increase in a single year, more than 100 new government positions, $41.7 million appropriated from the General Fund's reserves, projected deficits as far as the eye can see, a $75.1 million administration center with a television studio and wellness center (per the project's general contractor), and utility bill tax proposals being workshopped behind closed doors.
A coalition of Sarasota taxpayers — spanning both parties — is organizing what they describe as the most significant fiscal accountability campaign in the county's recent history.
"This isn't about party," said one organizer, a retired executive who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This is about people who said one thing to get elected and did the exact opposite once they got the gavel. We have lifelong Republicans who feel betrayed and Democrats who are sick of watching their tax dollars disappear into vanity construction projects while basic infrastructure crumbles."
Sarasota County Facts has requested comment from both Commissioner Neunder and Commissioner Smith. This story will be updated with their responses.
To the taxpayer advocates organizing this effort: Sarasota is watching. Florida is watching. And Sarasota County Facts will be covering every development as it unfolds.
- SOURCES CITED:
- Suncoast Searchlight (Derek Gilliam) — budget workshop reporting
- Florida Trident (Michael Barfield) — developer donations, Hi-Hat Ranch investigation
- Your Observer (Andrew Warfield) — budget increase reporting, primary challenger announcements
- WGCU — stealth tax analysis, Hi-Hat Ranch halt reporting
- WUSF — Hi-Hat Ranch commission vote reporting
- Our Town Sarasota — deficit projections, Barbetta quotes
- WSLR — commission retreat reporting, development halt coverage
- Sarasota County Budget Workshop Documents — official financial projections
- Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections — campaign finance filings
- Sarasota News Leader — capital improvement project data (252 projects, $2.35B)
