The City of Port St. Lucie and other local governments will soon start collecting an extra half-cent sales tax. For the city, that means an estimated $7.5 million in revenue every year for the next 10 years.
Voters approved the half-cent sales tax in November after local governments promised the revenue would be used to install sidewalks, repave roads and improve water quality, to name a few priorities.
In all, the city has approximately $82 million worth of projects lined up.
“We’re hoping to start the conversation,” said Assistant City Manager David Graham during a presentation of how city staff recommends scheduling the projects.
Staff has recommended a “pay-as-you-go” method of completing projects – only doing those for which the city has cash on hand.
The upside is that there’s no debt service (no additional cost for the projects); the money will stretch farther and allow more work to be done.
The downside is that it could take longer to get big-ticket projects done, such as improvements to Floresta Drive. Floresta’s price tag alone is an estimated $25 million.
The city will collect the half-cent revenues on a quarterly basis and isn’t expected to see that first installment until sometime in March or April.
In the meantime, the City Council and staff are trying to figure out which projects should be done sooner rather than later, and if the city should issue debt to get the ball rolling faster and use sales-tax funds to cover the debt’s cost.
“We could bond this,” Councilman John Carvelli said, “but the interest we would pay …” His voice trailed off. He said it’s an option the council could consider, but even if the city got a loan or a bond for $80-plus million, not all the work could be done at the same time.
“We’d love to do them all up front,” Carvelli said. However, he said there would be so much work to do that the labor force would not be able to keep up. Instead, he suggested the council move forward with the pay-as-you-go method to ensure projects are spaced out so labor would be available to perform the work.
Vice Mayor Shannon Martin disagreed, at least as it pertained to getting the Floresta improvements done. “We’re never going to get there that way,” she said of the pay-as-you-go method.
Before making a decision one way or the other, she encouraged staff to work up proposals for taking on debt.
“There is good and bad borrowing,” she said. The borrowing for these projects differs from past “failed economic investments” because these projects have a dedicated funding source and have already been approved by the voters, Martin explained.
City Manager Russ Blackburn cautioned the council that if they were to proceed with tackling a massive project such as Floresta right away, it would leave no funding for the smaller projects residents would expect to see happen, such as sidewalks and repaving.
He pointed to staff’s recommendation to do a few small projects each year while working on the larger projects in pieces.
Blackburn told the council that even if they wanted to push Floresta through and get it done in two years, it couldn’t happen. The 4-mile roadway requires engineering design as well as land acquisition, a process that will take several years.
The city could, though, move up the timing for the design phase so that Floresta could be ready for work just as soon as the money is in hand. “Not everything can be a priority,” Blackburn said.
By the end of the discussion, the City Council appeared to have reached a consensus that pay-as-you-go would be the default recommendation for projects. However, they also asked staff to present options for possible debt for some so they could have flexibility. “This is a 10-year plan,” Councilwoman Stephanie Morgan said. “We don’t have to rush. … We haven’t even started the sales tax yet.”
