By Julia Roberts
The Fernandina Beach City Commission praised City Manager Sarah Campbell’s work on the budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, and offered few suggestions for change.
The budget was first presented last week, and a budget workshop was held before the Aug. 5 city commission meeting.
“In the visioning session, we said we wanted efficiency, which Ms. Campbell came back with,” Vice Mayor Darron Ayscue said. “We talked about a reduction in head count, that’s what Ms. Campbell came back with. That’s how a visioning session should work. She came back with a surplus.”
The budget is based on the same millage (the rate property taxes are paid, based on property value) as the 2024-25 rate, 4.6849. However, as property values in the city have risen, that millage rate will bring 9.77% more revenue — $21,337,318 — up from $19,438,279. Keeping the same tax rate is considered a raise in taxes, as it will bring more money into city coffers. The budget includes a $125,000 contingency fund and a $510,000 surplus.
Campbell gave a presentation that took a deeper dive into the budget.
“The city has over 30 different funds. When you look at them in totality, all those funds total over $240 million,” Campbell explained. The bulk of the $240 million is reserved holdings, largely pensions. “All of those funds are balanced, and there’s a surplus of about $510,000 in the General Fund. The budget reflects a reduction of 17 full-time equivalents over the current year; 99% of those were through vacancies we identified that had never been filled and we decided to remove from the budget. There was one full-time position that, through attrition, we just won’t back fill. It’s a pretty conservative approach to the new year, with no new positions added, with the exception of three positions in the Fire Department.”
The city’s General Fund totals $44 million, up about 6.6% from last year. The Capital Fund includes a transfer from the General Fund of about $2.5 million. The Capital Fund has a reserve of $1.2 million.
“Normally, we would not hold a reserve in our Capital Fund, it is intended to build projects. But, this was earmarked for the downtown revitalization project, but because we don’t have complete funding for that, it hasn’t been assigned to anything,” Campbell explained. “It’s sitting there if we want to use it for downtown revitalization, but it’s not near enough to fund that project. The only thing we funded for downtown revitalization was about $200,000 to finish the design work.”
The city has several enterprise funds, departments that are meant to financially support themselves through revenue. Two of those departments, the Fernandina Beach Golf Club and the Fernandina Harbor Marina, are supported with money from the city’s General Fund.
Campbell broke the golf course finances into four categories: Operations, Top Tracer, Pro Shop and Food and Beverage. The current year will be the last for Top Tracer, a franchised virtual golf game that has struggled financially since it opened. Operations and Pro Shop finances are improving, but are still in the red, while Food and Beverage is positive. There is about $327,000 of capital improvements and $163,000 of debt on the golf course’s books, and there are plans to offer services that will bring in more revenue. Overall, the golf course has a $429,384 deficit. Campbell said staff is “working to chip away at that debt,” working with the City of Jacksonville Beach, which has a profitable golf club, to find ways to make Fernandina’s club profitable as well.
The marina, which is managed by Oasis Marinas, brought in $4,038,873, but its expenditures, personnel, operating expenses, capital expenses and debt, totaled $4,711,895, putting it $674,659 in the red.
“Ultimately, my goal was to eliminate the transfers to golf and marina, but we weren’t able to quite get there this year, but we are in better shape than we were last year,” Campbell said.
While city commissioners approved the presented budget overall, some gave suggestions regarding how the city should spend its money, including a $125,000 contingency fund and the $510,000 surplus.
“I would like to see some of that surplus used for a rollback rate, simply because lowering some of that millage for our businesses, our non-homesteaded properties and homesteaded properties,” Ayscue said. “If we’re not, I would like the commission to consider that the last commission put a pretty hefty amount in reserves for a reason we knew, the other was legal reasons. If we are not going to roll back, I wouldn’t mind seeing some moneys put aside for what I think is going to be a pretty hefty legal bill this year.”
“We still have not funded anything for the downtown (revitalization) or the demo of Brett’s (a city-owned building at the marina, whose lease expires this year),” Commissioner Tim Poynter said. “Those dollars are going to be used, and then some, for any potential legal contingencies, taking down Brett’s and the downtown.”
Commissioners Joyce Tutin and Genece Minshew both advocated for air and water monitoring.
”The painful conversation no one wanted to have before was whether we make a change at the golf course, whether or not we make a change at the marina,” Mayor James Antun said. “I am not advocating for either of those, but I thought it should be mentioned on record that, if the commission wanted to just cut costs, those are your biggest low-hanging fruit, that’s receiving $1 million a year.”
Campbell told the city commission “It has now become your budget,” and that while discussion of it can be done in workshops, “Any actions you want to take to amend this proposed budget will happen at the budget hearings during September.”
A meeting and public hearing to finalize the proposed millage and tentative budget will be held Sept. 3, and a meeting and public workshop will be held Sept. 16 to give final approval to the millage rate and 2025-26 budget.
jroberts@nassaunewsline.net
