Commissioners Eye $500,000 From Campus Reserves to Keep Weedon Island Open

Pinellas County commissioners spent part of Thursday's budget workshop looking for $500,000 to keep Weedon Island Preserve and Shell Key Preserve under county management, and Commissioner Chris Scherer suggested taking it from reserves set aside for the county's planned government campus near U.S. 19 and Ulmerton Road. County Administrator Barry Burton's proposed budget would end county funding for both preserves, close the Weedon Island Cultural and Natural History Center and hand the sites back to the state, saving roughly $474,000 out of a $40 million shortfall.

Nothing was decided. Commissioners will keep reworking the numbers into September, which is when the budget gets adopted.

What the proposed cut actually removes

The savings do not come from land. They come from people and a building. The county's own budget documents lay out the reductions, attributing them to state unfunded mandates.

Reduction	Savings
5 park rangers	$245,000
1 supervisor plus 1.7 education and outreach specialists	$164,000
Building maintenance at the history center	$65,000

Weedon Island runs 3,195 acres along Tampa Bay, with the boardwalks, the observation tower, the paddling trail and the history center that hosts school groups and public programs. Shell Key covers about 1,800 acres, including one of the county's largest undeveloped barrier islands, where boating, camping and beach use are allowed at the north and south ends while the middle stays closed for shorebird nesting.

Both are owned by the state. The state bought Weedon Island in 1974 and later turned management over to Pinellas, and the county has covered most of the staffing and maintenance bill ever since. Burton's argument is straightforward: when you are hunting for expenses to shed, land somebody else owns is where you look first.

Where Scherer's money would come from

Scherer is not proposing to slow down construction already underway at the government campus. The target is the cushion behind it. The county is banking reserves connected to the bonds financing the project, including unspent bond proceeds and premiums from the bond issuance, as a buffer against future cost surprises. Burton told commissioners about $25 million will eventually be available there, with $7.5 million earmarked in the current proposed budget.

Scherer asked Burton directly whether $500,000 could come out of that set-aside to save Weedon Island. Burton said it was within the board's authority to do that. Commissioner Kathleen Peters said she agreed, and much of the rest of the board sounded amenable.

The trade-off is a thinner cushion on a project the county has to finish. That matters more than usual this year because of Amendment Three on the November ballot, which would eliminate property taxes, the county's main revenue source. Commissioners are budgeting with that possibility hanging over them.

Hundreds of emails, and a fight with Tallahassee

Commissioner Vince Nowicki, whose district includes Weedon Island, said hundreds of residents had written to his office alone about the proposed cut. Speakers at recent meetings have included regular preserve users and the Central Gulf Coast Archaeological Society, which digs on the island and argued that the county's lease adds a layer of protection for the cultural resources there.

Commissioner Dave Eggers did not push back on Scherer's idea, but he wanted the longer game kept in view. Eggers said the state could simply fund the county to operate the two preserves, and that the state needs to take responsibility for what it owns. The county, he said, can manage and operate them.

That is essentially what Scherer's $500,000 buys: one more year of county operation while Pinellas negotiates with Tallahassee over who pays going forward.

What happens next

Commissioners have another budget workshop scheduled for Sept. 3, followed by public budget hearings on Sept. 10 and Sept. 24, where residents can speak before the board adopts the final FY27 budget and millage rate. The proposed general fund rate is 4.5423 mills, unchanged from this year. Details on the schedule are posted on the county's budget process page.

Weedon Island and Shell Key remain open and county-staffed in the meantime. The proposal on the table would have ended county funding starting Jan. 1, 2027.

For more county budget and commission coverage, visit Pinellas County Community Website and read more government and politics stories or browse our community coverage. Follow us on Facebook for updates as the September hearings approach, and join the conversation in our Community Forum: tell us whether the campus reserves are the right place to find the money.

Header photo: TlyleSheph3rd / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)