A Message from the Mayor
Fiscal Year 2023 Operating and Capital Budget
August 4, 2022
The Honorable Chairman Joe Citro and
Members of Tampa City Council
I am pleased to present the Recommended Operating and Capital Budget for the City of Tampa (the “City”) for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2022, and ending September 30, 2023, including the City’s Capital Improvement Program for FY2023 through FY2027.
The fiscal year 2023 budget theme is “Resilient Tampa.” Over the past three years of the pandemic, the people of Tampa came together and proved our resilience. Together, we not only overcame some of the greatest challenges we will ever experience, but we have thrived.
This is because, during the midst of a pandemic, we didn’t stop building. It’s because, at a moment when national and state politics seemed as divisive and divided as ever, the people of Tampa never forgot that we are more than our political parties or ideologies. That we are more than our differences. We are one Tampa and we stood together.
For decades, Tampa aspired to be called America’s next great city. Well, I will tell you this: Tampa, we have arrived. The rest of America has discovered Tampa. People from around the world have discovered Tampa - and no wonder! They are drawn not only to our lifestyle, but to our unique spirit.
Tampa is a city that celebrates the richness of our diversity and the strength of our communities. A city that welcomes newcomers with open arms, as we have for generations, from the cigar workers in the 1800s to Ukrainian refugees today. A city that works together to face challenges while brimming with optimism. A city that Forbes has ranked as the number one emerging tech hub, where entrepreneurs of all stripes want to start, expand, or move their businesses. A city where its best and brightest can find lifelong opportunities in their hometown, that is attracting young professionals from around the country, and is consistently ranked as one of the top cities where people are moving.
Rapid growth has led to incredible opportunities, but it has also made our needs more pressing. As we grow, the challenges are about looking out for future generations who will call Tampa home: our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. It’s about transforming Tampa’s tomorrow and defining a clear vision of what type of city we want to be. Cities that will thrive in the future will find that greatness is rooted in resilience and community spirit.
This budget reflects my administration’s desire to help solve these unprecedented challenges and is based on collaboration with City Council and from community input. To achieve our vision, we have identified five strategic goals and core responsibilities that continue to guide us forward. The five strategic goals are:
- Strengthening Community-Centric Services
- Enhancing Workforce Development
- Increasing Housing Affordability
- Improving Infrastructure and Mobility
- Sustainability and Resilience
The strategic core responsibilities of my administration are to appropriately manage the City’s finances and resources while preparing for the City’s financial future and to collaborate with city agencies and external partners to finance major development projects.
The City experienced welcomed economic growth as key economic indicators continued to move in a positive direction. The City’s taxable property value has increased for the tenth consecutive year, home sales have increased, and the unemployment rate has declined as the economy continues to improve. Additionally, the City’s credit ratings have improved significantly, having received 14 rating upgrades from Moody’s Investors Service, Fitch Ratings, and Standard & Poor’s since 2011.
The City of Tampa is performing great. The City enjoyed its tenth consecutive year of increases in property values and other revenues such as sales taxes, electric franchise fees, electric utilities taxes, businesses taxes, Community Investment Tax, and in fuel taxes. Because of our success, there will be no increase in millage; for FY2023, our millage rate will remain at 6.2076 mills.
The FY2023 Budget reinforces the City’s steadfast commitment to strong fiscal stewardship. By maintaining General Fund reserves at 23%, we are preparing to meet the challenges of “Resilient Tampa” head-on.
The budget we are submitting will enable our City to address many years of deferred maintenance and service. At $1.9 billion, the FY2023 budget is $64.0 million more than the FY2022 budget of $1.8 billion. This increase is primarily due to:
- A General Fund increase of approximately $65.5 million due to negotiated labor contracts; increases in fire and police and general employee pension contributions; increased fire and police healthcare trust payment along with other health insurance and benefits; additional positions in for permitting, construction inspection, and contract administration; funding for parks and recreation repairs and maintenance; additional staffing and vehicles for emergency medical services; and citywide technology improvements.
- The additional required contribution of approximately $9.2 million into the community redevelopment areas (CRAs).
- Enterprise Funds increases of approximately $146.3 million due to an expansion of Wastewater, Water, and Solid Waste capital project funding over the last fiscal year.
- Other Governmental Funds decreased by $136.7 million primarily due to the loss of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and the All for Transportation tax, offset by increased Stormwater and Transportation spending, and increased spending on citywide capital improvement projects (CIP).
- Governmental Debt Service funds decreased by $21.3 million due to cost savings from refunding Non-Ad Valorem and repayment of Downtown CRA bank notes offset by the issuance of Stormwater special assessment bonds and higher Utilities Services Tax revenue bond payments.
- Internal Service funds increased by $10.3 million to cover higher fuel and fleet maintenance expenses.
The FY2023 budget also serves our city’s mission to focus on the following five strategic goals:
Strengthening Community-Centric Services
At the end of the day, what impacts Tampa residents the most is our quality of life: low crime, public safety, parks, and our arts and culture.
- Tampa Police Department (TPD) has led the way for so many years. Partnering with our citizens to produce one of America’s safest cities of our size and the lowest crime rate of any major city in Florida. Our new police chief, Mary O’Connor, is leading the charge to ensure that every resident feels safe, regardless of their neighborhood or income level. We understand that economic development and hope are crucial to preventing crime but also that public safety is a prerequisite to economic development. To lift neighborhoods up for future generations, we need to end the violence that we see happening today so we can remain a safe city for all. In FY2023, we will invest an additional $3.2 million in updating TPD’s vehicle fleet.
- Under the leadership of Fire Chief Barbara Tripp, the brave men and women of Tampa Fire Rescue (TFR) responded to more than 90 thousand calls over the past year. We will be investing $2 million in more replacement vehicles for TFR’s vehicle fleet to reduce response times and continue serving with the highest quality of public service that Tampa Fire Rescue is known for. In FY2023, we will invest more than $650,000 in state-of-the-art EMS equipment including heart monitors and motorized stretchers.
- Tampa’s parks play a huge role in our quality of life, by bringing people together. We are so proud of our Parks and Recreation team for winning the National Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Parks and Recreation Management. We are moving forward on renovations across the city. This comes as we develop a master plan to ensure our parks properly serve our entire city for the next 10 to 20 years. These parks serve our children, our seniors, and all our neighborhoods. Tampa is nothing without our neighborhoods. In FY2023, in addition to constructing the East Tampa Recreation Complex, we will be updating recreation facilities to meet community needs such as: converting unused courts to pickleball courts, adding play equipment to aquatics facilities, repairing scoreboards at athletic fields, and buying new equipment for our art studios.
Enhancing Workforce Development
We envision a city where all Tampanians, young and older, newcomers and lifelong residents alike, benefit from our continued economic growth. Tampa will define pathways through higher education and certification programs to promote career readiness and foster a healthy workforce.
- Tampa is focused on training our next generation of small business owners and skilled workers. I am proud to have worked with Council member Luis Viera to pass an ordinance that requires state-approved apprenticeships on city projects. When someone learns a trade it’s not just an hourly job, it’s a valuable skill that for many in our city can one day lead to them owning their own business.
- I am very excited about a program we launched in 2021 called TPA-WRX. A one-stop shop connecting people to jobs and resources like childcare and job training. It connects people to resources and opportunities in high-demand industries such as healthcare, construction services, hospitality, and technology. Our economic and business opportunity office has made great strides to ensure women- and minority-owned companies have an equal opportunity to access city business. We increased the number of sheltered market contract awards for such businesses by 25 percent. Our workforce team is also helping people with a prior record re-enter the workforce- offering them a second chance.
Increasing Housing Affordability
Everyone needs a safe place to call home. Tampa will take an active and aggressive role to ensure there are housing options for Tampanians at all income levels.
- Tampa’s extraordinary growth and popularity have given us an unfortunate by-product: rising housing prices and a severe lack of affordable housing. Nothing is more important than alleviating this housing crunch. We cannot let those who have called Tampa home for generations to be priced out. We must be realistic about our housing market. The only way to make housing affordable for people at all income levels is to build more housing that remains affordable. It’s why I’ve opposed moratoriums, and why we are engaging the community as we look at where and how to build the housing our city needs.
- As long as Tampa has a great quality of life people will flock here. For every available apartment there are more than twenty people looking to rent. People who want to buy homes are facing the smallest inventory in decades and cutthroat competition with other buyers- including deep pocketed, out-of-town investors who are driving up home prices well beyond what is affordable. My son is one of those, struggling to find a house he can afford, in the city where he was raised. We are addressing this crisis from every possible angle - public/private initiatives like West River and Rome Yard projects, our in-fill program, land use and zoning changes, transit-oriented development, and everything in between.
- In 2019, I pledged that Tampa would create 10-thousand affordable housing units by 2027. Between completed, planned or under construction units, we are already over the halfway mark. Our financial assistance efforts, including rental and mortgage assistance and eviction protections, have helped nearly 5,000 people stay in their homes. In the last two fiscal years, we have appropriated over $100 million in housing-related funding, including $16 million in American Rescue Plan money, and for the first time $6.5 million from the city’s general fund. In FY2023 we will invest another approximately $20 million in affordable housing.
- Tampa City Council recently passed the “tenants bill of rights”, and I signed it because tenants should be able to live wherever they want regardless of their income source.
Improving Infrastructure and Mobility
Tampa will take the lead on transportation solutions for the future, developing a first-class transportation system that is affordable, accessible, and innovative.
- Generations of future Tampanians will celebrate the city council members, who in 2019 approved the nearly $3 billion Pipes project. We are replacing and maintaining water and wastewater lines that, in many parts of Tampa, are more than one hundred years old. It’s all leading to a stronger, cleaner, more sustainable Tampa. Between water main breaks that close streets for days, and old wastewater lines causing cave-ins, simply maintaining these old pipes would have been fiscally irresponsible. These bold investments in our infrastructure and future would not be possible without Tampa’s rock-solid financial condition. That explains how our already strong credit ratings have improved and how our bonds were so attractive to investors that we have saved tens of millions of additional dollars.
- I believe that water will be the most valuable and precious resource worldwide in the next decade. We must do all we can now to ensure a regional supply for decades to come. Therefore, we are focused on conservation. Pipes includes a citywide system of new water meters that will help us identify leaks immediately. It will not take days or weeks like it does now, conserving millions of gallons of water. It is also why drought-proofing our city is so critical.
- Transportation is not just about getting people from point a to point b, it’s a quality-of-life issue for all residents. With every new resident and job comes increased traffic. We do not want, nor can we handle, that many additional cars, so we need alternatives. Our options are limited, and we cannot widen our way out of this issue. But think about what we could do: Tampa could have a world-class public transit system that serves everyone. We could have safe pedestrian and cycling opportunities like sidewalks and bike trails, and newly paved and well-maintained streets. Tampa could have a transportation system that is our crown jewel, that provides mobility for all, connects residents to jobs and opportunities, and one that is safe for everyone.
- For this vision to become reality, it is critical that Hillsborough County voters pass the one-cent transportation referendum this November. This would provide the City of Tampa with the resources it needs to fix and build the transportation systems demanded by our population. And at least 20 percent or more of that sales tax revenue is paid for by out-of-town visitors. This will give us a dedicated funding source for transportation that, in part, is paid for by tourism.
- Even with our limited resources, we are making headway when it comes to transportation infrastructure. We created Tampa Moves, a visionary 30-year transportation plan for our community. We are making Tampa safer for pedestrians and bicyclists by completing projects like the Green Spine cycling track, complete streets and over 30 other shovel-ready projects. We have resurfaced neighborhoods like Southeast Seminole Heights, Hampton Terrace, and Culbreath Bayou and streets like 34th Street, Davis Boulevard, and Himes Avenue since I took office. The University Square, Ridgewood Park, and Tampa Palms Boulevard resurfacing projects are currently underway. In FY2023 we have budgeted an additional $1.4 million on road resurfacing. We have also included improvements to help slow driver speeds through our neighborhoods. Every maintenance project is an opportunity to improve the safety of our streets.
- With the assistance of Congresswoman Kathy Castor, we have secured $25 million in federal funding to build the West Riverwalk, which will connect West Tampa, Tampa Heights, Downtown, and South Tampa.
- Working with the US and Florida Departments of Transportation, we successfully secured a $25 million Raise grant that will bring much needed pedestrian safety and transit improvements to Tampa Heights. We have also secured a $65 million state grant to extend the streetcar, currently number two in the nation for ridership and continuing to increase monthly. The expansion of the streetcar will serve our rapidly growing urban core that is expecting more than 100,000 new residents and 250,000 new jobs by 2040.
Establishing Sustainability and Resilience
“Resilient Tampa” is the theme of this year’s budget. It requires the administration to address the city’s most urgent shocks and stresses.
- As we look to the future, our focus must remain on creating a city that is resilient and sustainable. In 2021, I named the city’s first Sustainability and Resilience Officer, Whit Remer, who is helping lead our city’s efforts to increase the use of renewable energy, protect and enhance our coastlines, and work with city departments and the community to fortify our infrastructure. That’s why our city center at Hanna will be outfitted with hundreds of solar panels, our precious springs are being restored, and our green spaces reimagined for a changing world. Just a few weeks ago we distributed one thousand trees to residents across the city. Our tree canopy must be preserved and strengthened. Resilience is at the core of everything we do.
Nothing showed Tampa’s resilience better than our city’s response to Covid. While other cities completely shut down and erupted in lawsuits, anger, and fear, Tampa worked quickly and aggressively to protect and balance the health and wellness of our residents and our businesses. We worked with Hillsborough County to take important steps to mitigate the spread of Covid. A University of South Florida analysis concluded that this reduced the number of cases in the Tampa Bay region by more than 1.5 million and saved thousands of lives. We brought vaccinations to vulnerable communities, and set-up testing sites at locations throughout our city. One of our greatest achievements is that we did not see the same level of Covid disparities in Tampa that most cities faced.
We launched a program called Lift Up Local to help businesses reopen in a safe way, including making it easier for restaurants to serve customers outside. And after widespread vaccinations, Tampa’s economic recovery was one of the fastest in the nation, outpacing every city but Austin. People returned to work faster. Household incomes have increased over 19 percent.
From that difficult day in March of 2020 when one of Florida’s first cases of Covid was right here in Tampa a top priority of my administration was to prevent Covid outbreaks among our critical teams. These are the people who provide our city with clean drinking water, pick-up our trash and recycling, respond to emergency calls, and the men and women who continued to protect and serve.
To our city of Tampa family, our entire community owes you a debt of gratitude. I received so many calls about our staff going above and beyond during the pandemic. One example is Richelle Jenkins, a solid waste driver.
Richelle was a beacon of hope for many senior citizens throughout quarantine - regularly checking up on our most vulnerable residents and helping bring their trash out to the curb. Likewise, our parks and recreation heroes kept checking up on their senior center regulars stuck at home. This is how we made it through.
Tampa is a great American city. It’s a city that knows how to win and understands the importance of teamwork. Whether it’s the Stanley Cup, the Super Bowl, or our multiple high school state championships, here in Tampa we support our teams.
We are also a city that supports arts and culture at levels only seen in world-class cities. We are investing more than $150 million right now to expand our Straz Center for the Performing Arts and the Tampa Museum of Art. We are a city that understands the social and economic benefits of the arts.
We are a city that will always stand-up for the rights of all our residents. Those who feel that their fundamental American rights are threatened, especially women, people of color and our LGBT community, know that Tampa has your back.
We are a city that is on the map, but we must understand that we are at a turning point. I was born and raised here and firmly believe that Tampa will change more in the next decade than it has in my lifetime. We see these changes every day. How many other cities are building entire, brand-new, and vibrant neighborhoods the way we are with Gas Worx, Tampa Heights, Midtown, Rome Yard, and Water Street?
But change can also be difficult and present challenges. This moment in time presents us with enormous opportunities and responsibilities. We can choose to be a city where households of all income levels have housing opportunities and choices. We can choose to be a city with world-class transit and safe options for getting around instead of growing potholes and traffic jams. We can choose to be a city where better jobs reward hard work and lift families out of poverty and into the middle class. We can choose to be a city that puts the quality of life for our residents first.
It’s the job of this administration and this city council to bring Tampa together, to harness our collective strengths as a city and to meet this moment. It’s the job of this administration and this city council to do everything we can to ensure that the choices we make today lead to a resilient city of tomorrow. What Tampa will become, and what type of city we will be for generations to come, is dependent on what we do today. It will take each of us working together to ensure that we transform Tampa’s tomorrow!
Respectfully submitted,
Jane Castor
Mayor