Orange County’s proposed 2019-20 budget, the first spending plan under new Mayor Jerry Demings, includes money to hire 52 new deputies and 53 more firefighter/paramedics, and it includes a $650,000 pledge toward a state-of-the-county promise that all full-time county employees will earn at least $15 an hour by 2021.
“I remain committed to providing the resources to keep our citizens and visitors safe,” said Demings, the county’s sheriff for a decade before winning the mayor’s seat last year.
The additional deputies “will help us keep pace with law enforcement needs,” he said.
Demings, who also served as Orlando police chief, said crime in unincorporated Orange County fell last year by 7 percent from the previous year.
The proposed $4.7 billion county budget does not call for a higher property-tax rate and focuses on public safety and other services stressed by explosive growth.
“The budget is balanced and leverages natural growth in revenue sources,” Demings said.
Property values in Orange County jumped 9.3 percent last year, an $11.2 billion gain over the previous year, and total taxable values now top $206.1 billion.
The soaring tax rolls mean a windfall of additional tax dollars for local governments like Orange County unless tax rates are rolled back, which hasn’t been discussed.
New construction in unincorporated Orange County added about $4.4 billion to the county tax rolls in the past year.
“The overall fiscal and economic health of the county is extremely strong,” Demings said in a budget summary.
He and Orange County commissioners will hold budget hearings Monday and Tuesday before adopting a spending plan. They’ll vote on the budget in September.
The county’s total taxable values are estimated at $143.9 billion for 2019 and should pull in proceeds of $638 million, up 10% over 2018.
County unemployment also is under 3%, a record low.
“While this is great news, it means we must work harder to manage our resources to keep pace with growth and maintain our quality of life,” Demings said.
The proposed budget include money to hire another 244 employees, including 39 who will work in building services, public works or utilities.
The county also intends to fill 28 positions at the Orange County Convention Center to handle an anticipated increase in trade shows.
The Convention Center’s annual operating budget is nearly $88 million.
Proposed public safety budgets top $740 million, about 16% of the budget. The Sheriff’s Office seeks $275 million.
“This is the budget that Sheriff [John] Mina and his team submitted, so these are the positions that Sheriff Mina has requested,” a sheriff’s spokeswoman said in an email to the Orlando Sentinel. " It’s not entirely set in stone where those positions would go as of now." She also noted, “All new hires, with very few exceptions, are patrol deputies for at least two years...”
The public-safety total includes $221 million for Fire/Rescue, which needs 26 firefighters to staff a new east Orange station on South Goldenrod Road.
The mayor also put $650,000 in the proposed budget to help pay for raises for full-time county employees who earn less than $15 an hour, a vow he made in during his State of the County address in May.
County spokeswoman Doreen Overstreet has said about 620 of the county’s 7,600 employees earn less than $15 an hour.
Those employees will receive the raises by 2021 at the latest.
The raises are estimated to cost about $1.7 million, and have to be phased in over the next two years, said Kurt Petersen, manager of Orange County’s Office of Management & Budget.
Under Demings’ budget, the county will give 19% more to the LYNX transit service in the coming year, a total increase of about $8.9 million.
Overall, LYNX’s budget is growing by less than 3%.
The transit system also receives federal and state funding and financial support from Osceola and Seminole counties and the city of Orlando.
Orange County, which has often tapped transportation reserves to make up for Lynx shortfalls, won’t tap the piggy bank anymore, Petersen said.
The mayor also pledged during his state-of-the-county speech that he will lead a drive to persuade voters in November 2020 to approve a penny sales tax to pay for the Lynx bus service, SunRail and other transportation upgrades. Orange County’s sales tax is 6.5%, lower than comparably sized Hillsborough County, which levies an 8.5% sales tax, highest in the state.
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