Commissioners Want Safety Class and Other Rules for Kids on E-Bikes
Winter Park is still considering exactly what rules to put in place and how to enforce them
Aug. 14, 2026
By Gabrielle Russon
Winter Park is considering imposing new regulations aimed to crack down on people driving electric bikes and motorized scooters dangerously around town.
The City Commission held a workshop Thursday to discuss how they want to craft a future city ordinance although they did not take an official vote. No public meeting date has been scheduled yet for the City Commission to vote on the final ordinance, spokeswoman Clarissa Howard said afterward.
The issue of e-bikes and e-scooters has been a hot topic in Central Florida. Just ahead of the new school year, Orange County Public Schools banned the devices for all students unless they have a valid driver’s license or learner’s permit. School officials expressed frustration that state and local governments have not acted sooner to pass any safety reforms.
On the workshop’s agenda, draft language of the ordinance proposed a 10 mph speed limit for any electric bicycle or motorized scooter traveling on sidewalks, shared-use paths, trails and parks. E-bikes and e-scooters would be banned on sidewalks within the central business district, Hannibal Square Neighborhood Commercial District or Orange Avenue District just like bicycles are.
But city officials questioned whether to include a specific speed limit at all.
Winter Park Police Chief Tim Volkerson said he was hesitant about the challenges of enforcing a 10 mph limit.
“Conceptually, I like the 10 miles an hour, but the reality is if you set a speed limit of 10 miles an hour, I’m going to have a line of people at my door wanting to know why we’re not running radar on sidewalks and giving kids tickets for going 11 and 12 mph on the sidewalks,” Volkerson said. “If it’s in ordinance, there is going to be an expectation that we are going to enforce it.”
He also warned some electric vehicles young people are riding don’t have speedometers.
“It’s hard to hold a 13- or 14-year-old kid accountable for going 10 miles an hour when he doesn’t have any method of determining that he’s going 10 miles an hour,” Volkerson said.
City officials suggested not having a specific speed limit at all but crafting the ordinance to say “unsafe speeds” or “carless” driving was prohibited on e-bikes and e-scooters.
However, Commissioner Elizabeth Ingram said if the city left it “broad like that, everyone’s going to have their own opinion of what is careless.”
Under the proposed ordinance, e-bike and motorized scooters would need to yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian.
Winter Park officials nixed a proposed provision to require e-bike and e-scooter drivers to carry a government-issued photograph ID.
Anyone under 16 will be required to take a city-approved safety education class to ride in city limits.
“I absolutely love the idea of requiring kids to attend the class. I think it’s very, very smart,” said Volkerson, who added that young people are already required to take a class to ride dirt bikes.
Volkerson balked at the idea of the city issuing a card to prove young people took the course. He preferred they get a certification of completion.
“They blow through stop signs,” Mayor Sheila DeCiccio said of young offenders she has witnessed. “They need to just learn the basic rules of the road.”
The proposed ordinance said parents or legal guardians would be held responsible for minors who get cited for violating the ordinance. City officials did not discuss how much the fines would cost.
“This is about accountability,” Commissioner Craig Russell said.
Other city officials acknowledged the city had limited leverage to handle repeat offenders since the city would not be giving licenses although Volkerson pointed out the city can impound e-bikes and e-scooters
“Tow company doesn’t care if it’s a bike or a car. You are going to pay a high impound fee for that,” Volkerson said.
Winter Park Police Chief Adds New Rules for Flock Cameras
Chief Tim Volkerson said the cameras that capture license plates are helpful in investigations, but wants to respond to concerns about the potential for abuse
Aug. 13, 2026
By Beth Kassab
Police Chief Tim Volkerson said Winter Park’s three flock cameras provide valuable information when it comes to tracking down criminal suspects.
But he told the Voice this week that he also understands growing concerns about how the cameras are used and worries about the potential for abuse.
That’s why he put new rules into place this week that no longer allow out-of-state agencies to access Winter Park’s system, continue to prohibit access by federal agencies and limit his own officers from using the data except for in cases of current and active investigations.
A Flock Safety image shows an example of what the cameras look like.
In addition, he said he’s adding more checks to monitor for misuse. The camera manufacturer announced on Thursday it made its own changes to enhance accountability and has rolled out a new audit mechanism and will require law enforcement agencies to adopt it by the end of the year, though Volkerson said he had not heard from the company directly as of Thursday.
“We’re going to build in a more robust audit system,” Volkerson said. “We value the tool and the safety it provides our community, but we also value the trust of our community and will continue to work to maintain that trust.”
Flock cameras, which get their name because they are manufactured by an Atlanta-based company called Flock Safety, are mounted along roadways and photograph vehicles. They create a searchable database of license plate numbers and other details such as the vehicle’s make, model and distinguishing characteristics.
On Thursday morning, the company announced a set of changes and new features that it says are designed to increase transparency and responsibility and prevent misuse.
“Abuse of Flock technology, at any level, is unacceptable,” said a message on Flock Safety’s website. “We have strengthened safeguards over the past nine years, from basic audit logs to proactive monitoring. Sixteen weeks ago, we introduced Audit Assistance, which detects abnormal activity and flags it for administrator review. In recent weeks, those reviews have been associated with arrests of several law enforcement officers who allegedly abused the system. More than one-third of our customers have voluntarily adopted audit assistance.”
The company said agencies who use its cameras will be required to adopt the audit system by the end of the year and it will roll out a “proactive lockout” feature that automatically suspends a user’s access to the data if it detects abnormal searches.
In addition, the data recorded by the cameras will only be saved for seven days instead of 30 days unless an officer shows there’s a reason to retain the information for longer.
“Our analysis shows that over 90% of searches without a full plate are done within a week,” the statement said. “Evidence Mode, which will roll out in the coming weeks, addresses the exceptional cases that take longer: detectives can preserve specific [automated license plate reader] data as evidence for an active investigation in cold storage, consistent with existing laws and policies.”
A chart from Flock Safety’s website addresses some concerns about the camera system.
In Winter Park, Volkerson said, three cameras have been in place on Lee Road, Fairbanks Avenue and Aloma Avenue for about five years. The lease for all three costs about $7,500 a year.
The cameras can be used in two ways: Police can search for a specific vehicle or tag number as part of an investigation or officers can program the system to alert them if when a vehicle associated with a crime is captured by one of the cameras.
Under the changes Volkerson is putting in place, outside agencies such as Orlando Police or the Orange County Sheriff’s Office will need to contact Winter Park PD in order to search data collected by Winter Park’s cameras. And the reverse is also true: Winter Park would need to contact other agencies if a case led them to require information from another city or county.
“It is a reciprocal network, so if we stop their access then we lose access going the other way as well,” he explained.
Last month his officers conducted between 50 and 60 searches.
As an example, Volkerson said the cameras proved helpful earlier this year when there were some residential burglaries along Phelps Avenue. He said his officers pursued a suspect but lost him. About 20 minutes later, they received an alert for the vehicle from a camera near South Orlando Avenue and pursued it again but did not capture the suspect. Eventually a different agency’s camera alerted that the vehicle was near Apopka and the suspect was arrested.
“It’s a huge benefit for the safety of the city,” Volkerson said of the camera network.
Privacy concerns among law-abiding citizens are a key concern that has emerged as the cameras have become more widespread across Florida and elsewhere.
Earlier this summer, an automotive journalist was testing out a Range Rover for TheDrive.com, an automotive news outlet, when multiple police vehicles surrounded the SUV in a Kohl’s parking lot in Plymouth, Minn. The man’s wife was in the passenger seat.
“After dropping off our Amazon returns, we’d just gotten back in the Range Rover and reversed maybe two feet out of the spot when four cop cars came flying out of nowhere and boxed us in,” he wrote. “The officers jumped out and started shouting. It’s a situation that can quickly and frequently turn bad, so as unprepared as I was, I followed their orders, got out with my hands up, and tried to figure out what the hell was happening.”
It turned out the license plate of the borrowed vehicle matched the plate of a stolen vehicle that had been entered into the Flock system incorrectly and that the police had been using the cameras to track the vehicle Feder was driving for days.
Police Chief Tim Volkerson
Closer to home in Tampa Bay, the St. Petersburg police chief recently addressed concerns about the cameras after a man drew national attention for wearing a t-shirt that reads “The Flock Blocker” as he protested the cameras by holding what appeared to be homemade shield on a long pole to block a camera lens.
And earlier this month a Haines City police officer was arrested and charged with official misconduct and other computer-related crimes after he used the Flock system for more than 700 searches over about two years to try to track the whereabouts of his estranged wife’s vehicle, according to a police investigation cited by news reports.
Volkerson said he understands the concerns and wants to ensure residents have trust in the system and understand police are using the data to try to solve crimes or find missing people, not track law-abiding people.
“I understand some of the complaints I have read,” he said. “I can see their point of view and I think it’s important to address that so we’re tightening things down so it does not become an issue. It’s the right thing to do.”
Police Chief Tim Volkerson said the cameras help enhance safety and could bring extra revenue for the department
Aug. 11, 2026
By Gabrielle Russon
Winter Park Police are looking to double the number of red light cameras in the city, a move that the police chief said would enhance safety as well as bring in new revenue amid talk of cutting the department’s budget as the state is pushing local governments to tighten their belts.
Last year, eight cameras posted at six intersections caught 24,400 violations– from blowing through a light to rolling right-on-red turns without a complete stop – and brought in $3.8 million in revenue.
Police Chief Tim Volkerson wants to add eight more red light cameras at the same six intersections, but facing different directions from the existing cameras.
“For example, Fairbanks and Orlando (Avenue) has a red light camera for westbound traffic,” Volkerson said. “It does not have a red light camera for eastbound traffic and it does not have a red light camera for north or southbound traffic.”
That intersection proved to be the third busiest of Winter Park’s red light cameras when it comes to issuing violations with nearly 3,600 tickets last year, according to police data analyzed by the Voice.
The camera on southbound Orlando Avenue at Lee Road resulted in nearly one-third of all the red light camera tickets last year. The second highest offending intersections were eastbound Lee and Orlando Avenue with 6,260 tickets.
Chief Tim Volkerson
Winter Park’s newest red light camera is at Phelps and Aloma is an intersection with a history of significant crashes, Volkerson said. That camera resulted in issuing about 1,600 red light violations last year.
Most of the violations caught on camera throughout the city are related to right-on-red turns. According to a state-required report that Volkerson is scheduled to deliver to the City Commission on Wednesday, nearly 70% of citations or 17,300 out of 25,000 violations during the 2025-26 fiscal year were for improper right turns on red signals.
Volkerson said safety is more important than money when it comes to adding red light cameras. But the topic came up at a recent City Commission work session as Volkerson presented his department’s budget, which includes keeping a community services position vacant next year to help reduce costs.
“Anyone that has lived in Winter Park would agree that the volume of cars that we have traveling through our city has increased,” Volkerson said. “The more important thing is for us to reduce crashes and even more importantly our goal is always to have zero fatalities.”
People speeding past red lights are most likely to cause T-bone or angular crashes that can have catastrophic results, Volkerson added. And Winter Park roads are active with cyclists heading out on the trails and early-morning runners training on the city streets every Saturday pre-dawn for Track Shack’s MarathonFest.
“If a byproduct is that it brings in revenue, that’s a good thing too, but that can never be and never should be the justification for doing it,” Winter Park City Commissioner Warren Lindsey told the Voice. “I would never ever support something just because it was a revenue producer when it wasn’t emphatically and primarily done for purposes of safety of motorists and pedestrians.”
A typical red light camera fine is $158 and the city of Winter Park collects $75 of that total with $2 going to police training and $73 to help fund the police budget. The rest of the money goes to the state for general revenue, health funds, and helping people with spinal cord injuries.
Volkerson is analyzing crash data to determine which intersections have the most cars passing through and the most crashes. The state requires cities to pass an ordinance in order to add new cameras and provide a reasoning for the locations.
“There has to be a nexus for us putting them there. We can’t just decide we’re going to put one at Park and Morse. We have to justify to the state why this is going there,” he told city officials at the budget work session.
Volkerson added he was not looking at school zones since those areas don’t generate enough traffic volume and are often already patrolled by officers.
Winter Park’s potential red light camera expansion comes as Floridians will be deciding whether or not to approve an overhaul of local property taxes in November.
Recently, the Florida State Fraternal Order of Police and the Florida Sheriffs Association came out strongly against the property tax ballot initiative, arguing the increase in homestead property tax exemptions could result in fewer dollars for essential services like public safety.
Volkerson declined to comment on personal stance on the ballot amendment.
“It’s up to each person to decide and vote,” Volkerson said.
Some, like Orange County Commissioner Kelly Martinez Semrad, fear that Amendment 3 will shrink funding for local governments.
“No matter how you shake it or how you roll the dice, property tax reform has an impact on the services that any municipality will be able to provide,” said Semrad, whose district includes Winter Park.
Semrad brought up whether red light camera tickets could help supplement the Orange County Sheriff’s budget if Amendment 3 passes as county officials held their own budget workshops last month.
“Ultimately we will have less revenue than than we do now … and we need to look for strategies to fill [revenue gaps]. So red light cameras might be an option,” she told the Voice. “I would rather tax somebody who made a mistake, did something wrong, ran a camera – than finding ways to tax others.”
Lindsey, the Winter Park commissioner who is also a criminal defense lawyer, said the presence of a red light camera has a real effect on drivers to make them more aware of their driving habits.
“The other thing is they’re less expensive to maintain than a police officer obviously,” Lindsey said. “You’re able to have them up there 24/7.”
Lindsey also liked that people who get cited have a process to contest their tickets and not get penalized on their driving records if they pay the civil fines.
According to the city’s report, nearly 74% of people who receive the notice of violations pay them.
In those cases, “It doesn’t affect you in the grand scheme of things on your record,” Lindsey said.
About 16% of civil violations result in a uniform traffic citation being issued because it wasn’t paid. Some drivers contest the citations in court, but the city did not report having any dismissed by a judge, though eight cases are currently pending, according to the city’s report.
There is one way to avoid the hassle altogether, Volkerson said.
“It’s really easy,” Volkerson said. “All you have to do is stop and not run the red light.”
On the Chopping Block: Police, Fire, Community Groups, Trash Collection
This week, in an email to residents, Mayor Sheila DeCiccio asked what should be cut in the city budget as a result of state-ordered reductions
Aug. 7, 2026
By Beth Kassab
After years of stripping power from locally elected mayors and commissions when it comes to everything from regulating where apartments can be built and how tall to whether cities can ban gas-powered leaf blowers or plastic straws, state leaders have reached a new level of micro-managing local governments: mandatory lists of budget fat.
Cities and counties will be required to publish those lists starting next year as a result of a new law (HB1329) signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis this summer.
But Winter Park is getting a jump on the exercise.
With potential property tax cuts looming in the form of Amendment 3 on the November ballot, city managers asked each department to lay out cuts to reduce their budgets by 10% (This exercise will be mandatory for local governments next year as a result of the new law.)
The results?
Here’s just a sample of what’s on the budget fat list in City Hall:
Eliminate a code enforcement officer position that is currently vacant ($75,000)
Eliminate funding for the Public Art Advisory Board ($15,000)
Eliminate the mailed printed version of quarterly Winter Park Update newsletter and monthly inserts in utility bills ($71,900)
Eliminate the use of accepting cash for city services like permits or other needs at the City Hall windows ($50,000)
Eliminate two vacant firefighter positions ($200,000)
Close a Fire Rescue engine company ($1.25 million)
Begin closing the library every Monday ($210,000)
Reduce garbage collection to one day per week ($300,000)
Reduce tree plantings, canopy maintenance and eliminate residential tree permits among other changes ($600,000 combined)
Eliminate the Historic Preservation Grant Program ($100,000)
Eliminate four police detectives, one traffic officer, one community service officer and two officers dedicated to homeless outreach ($1.15 million)
Eliminate body-worn cameras and live crime center for the police department ($300,000)
Reduce funding to community organizations such as the Winter Park History Museum, the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens, Mead Botanical Garden, Blue Bamboo and more. ($243,500)
You get the idea. And that’s not the complete list.
Also, to be clear, the spreadsheet of potential cuts provided by City Hall included about 45 items. Some of those were ways to increase revenue for the city (such as adding more red light cameras, which could result in $750,000 in new revenue). Even so, the total did not add up to $9.5 million or about 10% of the proposed budget’s nearly $95 million general fund. The proposed all-funds budget, which includes the utilities and other funds, is up to $247 million.
The Voice totaled the spreadsheet to about a $7.8 million overall reduction (including some revenue gains proposed).
“As you can see, getting to a budget cut of 10% would not be painless,” Mayor Sheila DeCiccio told the community in an email she sent out this week. “It could mean fewer police officers and detectives, longer emergency response times, reduced park maintenance, one-day a week trash collection, and fewer community programs.”
She asked residents in the email what they prefer to cut, explaining, “I’m writing this email because I believe you, our Winter Park residents, deserve to see the potential cuts that are being discussed. As always, I’m committed to full transparency.”
Winter Park staff estimates Amendment 3 would require cuts of $3.4 million in 2028 and $6.7 million in 2029. So far shy of the 10% exercise. But not far off once a few years into the new tax structure if it wins by the required 60% of voters in November.
The Voice has heard from some readers who appear to be under the impression that police and fire or other “essential services” can not be cut under Amendment 3, which would increase the homestead exemption ultimately to $250,000.
But that’s not the case. Cities and counties will still provide emergency services, to be sure, but at what level?
Florida House Republicans approved language that would ban local governments from reducing money for law enforcement, firefighters, and first responders below the level in either fiscal year 2025-26 or 2026-27, whichever was higher. But the Senate never approved that version and it died during the Legislative session.
That’s why police and sheriffs’ organizations have spoken out about the potential impact of the amendment and cuts that could result from it.
“The Florida Sheriffs Association is significantly concerned with Constitutional Amendment 3, which potentially allows Tallahassee to control your local budgets, creates longer law enforcement response times, limits communities’ abilities to provide road repairs and stormwater removal — these are a few things voters deserve to be aware of,” the organization said this week on Facebook.
And the soaring cost of police and fire service is a main driver of the growth in the budget the City Commission will consider this month.
Record-high pension costs for police officers and firefighters as well as a new labor contract with the Fire Union that included a 12% pay increase in 2026 will account for 70% of new costs in the proposed 2027 budget.
In 2021, for example, the starting salary for a Winter Park police officer was $22.84 an hour or about $48,000 a year. Today it’s $30.34 an hour or more than $63,000 a year.
Police Chief Tim Volkerson has said the increases are the result of pressure on wages from other departments who have raised pay as they have struggled to hire and retain officer.
The city has 121 full-time police staff and three part-time staff slated for 2027, up from 115 full-time staff and 13 part-time staff in 2023.
The budget for the fire department is up from $13.2 million in 2020 to a proposed nearly $19 million for next year. The department has grown from 81 full-time staff and two part-time staff in 2023 to 84 full-time staff and three part-time staff.
Translated into savings for individuals residents, homesteaded property owners would pay about $818 less per year to Winter Park. The total tax savings per year for Winter Park homeowners if the ballot measure passes would be $1,783, including the reduction paid to the city as well as the reductions in taxes paid to Orange County and St. Johns River Water Management District. (Taxes paid to schools would remain unchanged under the tax proposal on the ballot.)
The City Commission is slated to hear public input and consider portion of the budget at this meetings this month on Aug. 12 and Aug. 26 before final adoption of the budget by the end of September.
Orange Schools Ban E-Bikes and E-Scooters Unless Students have Driver's License or Permit
The change voted on this week prompted pushback from parents who say their students rely on the devices. Winter Park is drafting its own ordinance related to electric bikes and scooters.
July 29, 2026
By Gabrielle Russon
Two weeks before the new school year starts, the Orange County School Board voted Tuesday to ban kids from riding e-bikes and e-scooters unless they have learner’s permits or driver’s licenses.
The school board’s unanimous vote Tuesday came after a divided debate where school board members insisted the new rules are necessary to stop the rising number of crashes and protect children. Meanwhile, some parents and students argued the board is overstepping its bounds with a new policy that will make it harder for kids to get to school.
“This is one of the hardest decisions to make, and I think because there are so many strong compelling arguments on both sides,” school board chair Teresa Jacobs said.
Critics called the policy rushed since the first day of school is Aug. 11, giving families little time to prepare.
Stephanie Vanos represents Winter Park schools.
“I’m here to ask you to slow down before making a decision that could have unintended consequences for many families. Micromobility devices are a vital form of transportation for many students,” said parent Heather Grimmer who lives in Avalon Park. “We all want to protect our children, but protecting them doesn’t mean always taking something away.”
School board member Stephanie Vanos, who represents Winter Park schools, argued the school board held four public meetings over the last year on the issue ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
“This has been a thoughtful and deliberate process,” Vanos said. “I would be surprised if anybody on this board actually wants to ban micromobility devices. I don’t think anybody does.”
“The reality is we’re here now and school is starting and there’s nothing in place,” Vanos said.
For school board member Maria Salamanca, the ban will stop elementary and middle schoolers who are too young to drive from having to make split-second decisions on the road when a mistake can lead to a tragedy.
“I cannot in good conscience vote to encourage these devices in our campus,” said Salamanca, who represents Lake Nona schools where a 13-year-old boy was killed after an e-scooter crash on Mother’s Day. “It’s really dangerous.”
E-bikes and e-scooters are a growing concern throughout Winter Park and Orange County. The city of Winter Park is in the process of creating its own ordinance to crack down on reckless riders.
Tuesday’s meeting shows the challenge of regulating the popular devices. Nearly 12,000 OCPS students regularly went to school on e-scooters or e-bikes, according to a district survey in December. About 42% of those students were in middle school, 32% in high school and 26% in elementary school, the survey found.
Nate Clark’s four kids are among those depending on e-scooters since they live too far to walk and too close to catch a bus to Baldwin Park Elementary or Glenridge Middle School, both not far from Winter Park.
“If this passes tonight, I don’t know how they’re getting to school on Aug. 11,” Clark told the school board.
The ban is “unnecessary” and “unfair,” he said, arguing state law treats e-bikes or e-scooters as bicycles — not cars. Why is the district treating them differently?
Other parents urged the school district to focus on teaching safety rules, improving infrastructure or enforcing helmet rules instead of banning them outright from elementary and middle schoolers.
“Let the kids scoot,” said Mike Bustillos, a former teacher who advocates for a more walkable community. “We shouldn’t be removing freedom and mobility options from kids in order to make things more comfortable for cars. Kids today have precious little freedom to roam the way that I did when I was a kid.”
School board members pushed back on the criticism. Before e-scooters and e-bikes existed, working parents found ways to get their kids to school, said school board member Melissa Byrd.
“I do not believe that taking away e-bikes and e-scooters is going to cause students to not be able to get to school,” she said.
Superintendent Maria Vazquez said she supports phasing in the ban for the first month of school to get families time to figure out other transportation options.
Vazquez and school board members also expressed a willingness to revisit the ban later this year.
“I am going to vote in favor of this policy now with the hopes that our counties and cities are going to come up with some great policies and rules and we can go back and revisit this and change it,” Vanos said. “Hopefully that will happen soon.”
Winter Park Contends with Higher Police and Fire Costs and How to Maintain Roads
The city’s proposed 2027 budget is also cautious of future cuts to property taxes if voters approve a measure on the November ballot. Winter Park homeowners would save less than $2,000 a year, but the city could ‘lose some of the things that make it feel extra special’
July 22, 2026
By Beth Kassab
The Winter Park City Commission is poised today to adopt the same property tax millage for the 19th year in a row, but the steady rate belies an increasingly complex financial picture for one of the region’s most high-profile cities as it contends with soaring costs for its police and fire departments, a demand from residents for better roads, increasing prices for electric and water customers and a governor and state Legislature looking to slash property revenues.
The All-Funds Budget, which includes the General Fund as well as the utilities and other funds, is proposed to increase this year by nearly 6% to $247 million. The General Fund, which pays for essential services such as police, fire, parks, public works and administration, is growing by about 5% to $94.6 million.
The growth in money collected by the city is being driven by higher bills for electricity, water and stormwater — the result of policy decisions in recent years and up for debate again this year by a City Commission facing big expenses to prevent storm flooding and to continue to underground all of the power lines for the city-owned electric utility. Property taxes remain a driver of growth in the general fund, where the taxes make up just under half of the revenue pie.
City Manager Randy Knight cautioned that a measure on the November ballot initiated by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature to significantly alter how local governments are funded by reducing property owners’ tax bills could eat into the kinds of services the city provides by 2028, when it is set to take effect if it passes with the required 60% approval from voters.
City officials are forecasting a hit of at least $5.4 million in the first year. Translated into savings for individuals residents, homesteaded property owners would pay about $818 less per year to Winter Park. The total tax savings per year for Winter Park homeowners if the ballot measure passes would be $1,783, including the reduction paid to the city as well as the reductions in taxes paid to Orange County and St. Johns River Water Management District. (Taxes paid to schools would remain unchanged under the tax proposal on the ballot.)
“It will have an impact on city services that will be felt,” Knight said in his annul budget memorandum to the City Commission. “Winter Park will still be able to provide essential services, but the city may lose some of the things that make it feel extra special … A loss of over $5 million is like losing almost half of the Parks Department, so it will not be a small issue to determine how best to prioritize spending, but it is likely that a combination of service reductions and revenue increases will end up balancing the budget in future years.”
With just six months to go before his retirement after decades at the helm of the city and 36 years since he helped prepared his first budget in 1990 as the city’s finance director, Knight was reflective in his final budget memo of past challenges.
“As we face potential impacts from the so-called tax reform, I want to remind you that we have faced tough times before and always endured,” Knight wrote. “The 2004 hurricane season cost approximately $18 million for recovery and wiped out our reserves. The 2008 housing bubble coupled with tax reform resulted in a huge hit on city revenues. The Pandemic shuttered businesses and locked down communities, but we survived and thrived. Today Winter Park is the envy of the region, with commercial properties with the lowest vacancy rates and highest asking rents, exceptional schools, and beautiful walkable residential communities and amenities. Over 3 million visitors come to the crown jewel of downtown Park Avenue each year and our financial reserves have grown to over $24 million.”
A graphic from Winter Park’s proposed budget document shows how money in the General Fund is spent.
But the budget document also described in stark terms how expenses for basic needs like police and fire are simply outpacing revenues.
Record-high pension costs for police officers and firefighters as well as a new labor contract with the Fire Union that included a 12% pay increase in 2026 will account for 70% of new costs in the proposed 2027 budget.
“Of the $4 million in the increase in personnel wage and benefit costs in the General Fund estimated for the next fiscal year, almost a third (30%) is due to increases in public safety pensions for police and fire
retirement plans,” according to the budget proposal.
The city will have to spend $1.2 million more on the pensions, according to the document, the result of “changes in actuarial tables, the addition of new employees and the weak 2022 stock market year that still affects their formulas.”
“Staff is reviewing the possibility of making adjustments to the pension plan in the future to attempt to mitigate this growing cost,” the document said. “With property tax reform on the horizon, having a quarter of the entire annual growth in revenue going solely to public safety pensions, is not sustainable.”
Police pay has increased by nearly 50% in Winter park in recent years and the proposed 2027 police department budget is $23.2 million, up from $14.9 million in 2020. The department will keep a community services position vacant next year to help reduce some costs, according to the proposal. The city has 121 full-time police staff and three part-time staff slated for 2027, up from 115 full-time staff and 13 part-time staff in 2023.
The budget for the fire department is up from $13.2 million in 2020 to a proposed nearly $19 million for next year. The department has grown from 81 full-time staff and two part-time staff in 2023 to 84 full-time staff and three part-time staff.
Winter Park is not alone in what has amounted to an arms race in public safety pay across Florida as departments have struggled to recruit and keep candidates for jobs that require personal risk, physical stamina and no work-from-home privileges in a post-pandemic world where many offices have emptied out.
For example, the pay for a starting deputy at the Orange County Sheriff’s office in 2020 was $49,296, according to the office. By 2025 it was $62,566. That’s in addition to increases in bonuses, the number of paid holidays and minimum compensation for off-duty pay and longevity pay.
A graphic from the city’s budget presentation shows the potential cumulative effect of the property tax measure on this November’s ballot.
In addition to public safety costs, roads emerged as Winter Park’s other main budget priority this year.
That’s the result of a survey of residents with about 800 responses that identified the quality of both brick and asphalt streets as a major need for improvement.
“This has been an area in which funding has been added in the past, but it has been insufficient to keep pace with the level of street deterioration and the cost of repairs,” read the budget memorandum.
The budget includes more money for contractors to resurface roads and doubles the amount for road materials with an additional $500,000. Winter Park has fallen short of its own goal of redoing 9 lane miles o road each year, typically completing just 4 or 5 lane miles with the exception of in 2025. The new goal will be to achieve repaving of 7.5 lane miles each year.
City Commissioners are slated to vote on the property tax rate this afternoon. More discussion and debate over the full proposed budget is scheduled for August with a final budget vote in September before the start of the new financial year in October.
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