By Fabio Braggion
Herald Intern
On September 23rd, the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners approved the Seminole County 2025/2026 Fiscal Year Budget, which included the last addition to a trifecta of tax increases on property, utility, and gas.
“The last several years, we were aware this day was gonna come,” said District 2 County Commissioner and Seminole County Board of County Commissioners Chairman Jay Zembower.
Property tax increases by the millage rate. The extent of the tax increase is based on the individual property, calculated by the Seminole County Government using a millage equation. The equation is as follows: taxable value of your property divided by one thousand multiplied by the millage rate. The rollback rate is a millage rate that would generate the same revenue the Seminole County government received in the last fiscal year.
According to the Seminole County Budget for the 2025/2026 fiscal year, which you can find a link for in the agenda of the September 23rd meeting, the millage rate on homes within the county increased from 4.8751 to 5.3751, with a 16.42% increase from the rollback rate. In the incorporated limits cities of Altamonte Springs, Winter Springs, and Casselberry, the millage rate stayed the same, but is still a 5.43% increase from the rollback rate. In the Unincorporated districts of Seminole County, the millage stayed the same, but it is still a 5.33% increase from the rollback rate.
“The average homeowner of Seminole County, on the property tax side, will be impacted about $144 a year or $12 a month, that’s the average,” said Zembower, without the inclusion of any tax exemptions a property owner may be eligible for.
Zembower also elaborated that the tax increase on gas and utilities is based on the use of the individual, with an average individual calculated to have a $20-$25 gas tax increase.
“Somebody that’s gonna drive a lot more is gonna pay more, somebody that’s gonna drive very little, maybe just goes to church and the grocery store, is gonna pay a lot less,” said Zembower, “And same way with utility tax, utility tax is gonna be generated based off your consumption.”
Despite the conditional increases of these taxes, business owner David Leavitt still finds them alarming.
“When I first learned they were going to do it, I was shocked they would even consider it,” said Leavitt.
Leavitt owns and operates Refresh Computers, a tech repair company that also sells refurbished electronics. He also owns three rental homes in Seminole County, where he explained he’s forced to raise rent.
“My primary residence is in Seminole County, where I live, my business is in Seminole County, and I have three rental homes in Seminole County. I have to increase the rent for all of those folks next lease, to cover the increase in property taxes,” said Leavitt.
Zembower raised similar talking points, saying that renters and people who own the rental properties will have a proportional increase compared to those with Homestead, Save Our Homes, and other tax exemptions. This act of passing on the rising costs is something that the Seminole County 2025/2026 fiscal year budget clearly reflects.
“What people are missing is since COVID, the county’s bills go up just like mine and yours does,” said Zembower.
Zembower correlated the tax increase to an increase in the budget, which he broke apart into three sectors. He stated that the Seminole County Sheriff’s budget increased by 15%, other constitutional offices such as the Clerk of the Courts and Supervisor of Elections increased by 6-10% and the Board of County Commissioners increased by 0.13%.
The most unexpected increase in the budget was the Sheriff, who needed the money to hire and retain more officers in a competitive job market.
“He’s been getting these new hires trained; they come to work for a year, maybe two years after we’ve invested money in their training, then they leave and go to like Orange County or the city of Casselberry or Winter Springs or the city of Orlando, so all we’re doing is training people to work somewhere else,” said Zembower.
He hopes that this increase in budget can allow the Sheriff to increase salaries for current and new hires while also raising hiring bonuses, attracting police officers to work for Seminole County. The small increase in the Board of County Commissioners’ budget comes from multiple cuts after their Financial Officer came back with dire news three years ago.
“Our Chief Financial Officer came to us and said, ‘Look, if everything continues like it is, by 2026-2027 you’re not gonna be able to meet the budget,” said Zembower.
Since then, the Board of County Commissioners has been conducting staff cuts, delaying projects or making them smaller, and not replacing staff who have retired. Zembower urged other county offices to do the same since they cannot control their budgets. These are known as Constitutional Offices that present their own budgets to the Board of County Commissioners independently. Some of these offices include the sheriff, clerk of the courts, and the supervisor of elections.
According to Grant Malloy, Seminole County Clerk of the Court and Comptroller, they’ve also made the necessary cuts to keep budgets low, but in this economy, it isn’t enough.
“If you buy a house, you’re gonna pay doc stamps, it’s gonna be recorded in the official record of Seminole County, and those revenues have been dropping substantially since the peak of the real estate boom in 2006,” said Malloy.
Zembower mentioned a similar talking point in terms of county revenue from development. Seminole County, unlike most counties in Florida, doesn’t have as much space to develop, which leads to less revenue for the Clerk of the Court and fewer people on the tax roll.
The amount of money the Clerk of the Courts should be receiving has been a heated debate between the two parties, leading to a lawsuit filed in February against the county for inadequate funding.
“If you look at the county, they’ve grown faster than inflation; if you look at my office, it’s substantially less,” said Maloy.
Zembower retorted with the claim that the Clerk of the Court’s budget has increased 90% in the last five years, and they have been sitting on a five-million-dollar trust fund that is going unused. A similar misuse of money is something that Leavitt claims the Board of County Commissioners is doing by investing in a new sports complex and $60,000 bonuses on top of their $100,000 salary.
“I did my own DOGE, if you will, and found all kinds of waste and abuse of our tax dollars,” said Leavitt.
Zembower explained that the sports complex was a talking point that hasn’t been decided, and if they were to construct it, it would serve as a space to hold graduations and act as a hurricane shelter. As for the salaries of the County Commissioners, those are fixed by the Florida government. Any spending that the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners does can be found in the Open Checkbook on the Clerk of the Courts website.
On October 20, in a press release by Seminole County leaders, Zembower addresses claims made by the State of Florida Chief Financial Officer, Blaise Ingoglia, on Seminole County’s budget. According to the press release, Ingoglia stated that Seminole County had exceeded the spending index based on population for a county. Zembower claims that most of this spending is the $120 million imposed by the state on County Jails, court and justice system funding, an increase in state retirement contributions, and SunRail obligations.
“These are not discretionary expenses; these are statutory obligations,” said Zembower, “The CFO is criticizing counties for rising costs that the state itself has ordered us to pay.”
The press release ends by explaining the sheriff budget increase, the mass transportation cost increase, and refusals to ignore spending on community-supported programs. Zembower urges Ingoglia to adopt a different model of measurement that reflects real-world cost.
“You can do certain things, but certain things you just gotta pay for,” said Zembower as he explained they could not make cuts to firefighters, police, libraries, and parks without seriously hurting their ability to function.
Both Maloy and Zembower agree that the current economy, rising prices, and smaller sources of revenue are mostly to blame for the increase in the budget reflected in the 2025/2026 fiscal year tax increase.
