Pinellas eyes campus reserves to save Weedon Island

To save funding for Weedon Island Preserve, Pinellas County Commissioner Chris Scherer pitched cutting $500,000 from money being set aside for the county’s future government campus.

The county is facing a roughly $40 million budget shortfall, and County Administrator Barry Burton had recommended cutting funding for Weedon Island and Shell Key, two state-owned preserves that Pinellas leases and operates. The cut would save the county about $474,000.

Instead, during Thursday’s commission meeting, Scherer considered leveraging the county’s planned government campus near U.S. 19 and Ulmerton Road.

According to Burton, around $25 million will ultimately be available in reserves connected to financing the campus, with $7.5 million already earmarked in the current proposed budget.

What Scherer and Burton are referring to are reserves connected to the bonds being used to pay for the new government campus. The money, including unspent bond proceeds and premiums from when the bonds were issued, is being set aside as a buffer against unforeseen costs in future budgets.

Scherer is not proposing cutting $500,000 from construction already underway, but reducing how much the county is setting aside against future costs associated with financing the campus.

The risk is that it would leave the county with a slightly smaller cushion for the project while freeing money for the preserves in the coming budget year. A risk exacerbated by the looming possibility that Amendment Three, which would eliminate property taxes (one of few revenue-generating instruments for the county), might pass in November.

“Of the current budget we are putting aside [from the campus bonds], can we cut that by $500,000 and save Weedon Island?” Scherer asked Burton.

“That is certainly within your purview,” Burton replied, followed by a smattering of assent from much of the commission.

“I agree,” Commissioner Kathleen Peters said.

Commissioner Vince Nowicki, whose district includes Weedon Island, stated that hundreds of residents had written just to his office over the proposed cut.

Pinellas has operated the state-owned preserves under agreements with Florida for decades, with the county covering much of the cost of staffing and maintaining them. That arrangement is receiving greater scrutiny as commissioners search for cuts elsewhere in the budget. Burton’s position is essentially that, when the county is looking for expenses to shed, property owned by the state is an obvious place to look.

Commissioner Dave Eggers did not disagree with Scherer, but expressed a note of caution, pointing to further negotiations with Tallahassee over where the “proper responsibility” falls. Weedon Island and Shell Key are owned by the state, while Pinellas has largely funded and managed them for decades.

“They could fund us the money to operate those two parks,” Eggers said. “[The state] needs to take responsibility for what they own,” he continued. “We can manage it; we can operate it; we can do all that; I just want to make sure we get all that considered.”

Scherer’s proposal would essentially buy the county another year while it negotiates with the state over a longer-term funding arrangement. No final decision was made during Thursday’s meeting, but commissioners will continue reworking the budget before adopting it in September.