Pinellas Budget Plan Would Pull Lifeguards Off Fort De Soto and Sand Key, Charge $3.50 an Hour to Park

Pinellas County's proposed 2027 budget would take every lifeguard off the stands at Fort De Soto and Sand Key, end county funding for the Shell Key and Weedon Island preserves, and replace the $6 daily beach parking fee with an hourly rate of about $3.50 at three of the county's busiest beach parks. Commissioners get their first crack at the plan at a budget workshop on Aug. 20, and if it survives, the parking change could hit as soon as October.

The lifeguard cut is 20 lifeguard positions and five senior lifeguard positions, for savings of roughly $374,000. Add the two preserves and Parks and Conservation Resources Director Paul Cozzie puts the department's total savings at about $847,000.

That is a fraction of the county's problem. The gap in the coming fiscal year is $42 million.

Why the county says it has to cut

Cozzie, in a letter to parks stakeholders, tied the reductions to new state-imposed costs, singling out required increases to public safety and law enforcement pension funds. Every county department was told to find savings. Commissioner Brian Scott put this year's unfunded mandates from Tallahassee at roughly $12 million, up from the $5 million to $10 million range a year ago, and said the money has to come out of general fund taxes.

Cozzie's letter made a point of stressing something else: these cuts are not the result of the homestead exemption increase on the November ballot. That measure has not passed. The $42 million hole exists anyway.

Scott has described the 2027 budget as a dress rehearsal, arguing the pressure from the state is more likely to grow than fade, and that he would rather not add something back into the budget he expects to strip out next year.

What changes at the parking pay station

The proposal would move Fort De Soto, Sand Key and Fred Howard Park to an hourly rate of about $3.50, a shift local news reports say the county expects to bring in roughly $2.1 million. Right now the county charges a flat daily rate at those three parks.

Beach parking	Cost
Current daily fee	$6
Proposed hourly rate	about $3.50
Annual beach pass	$75 plus tax ($80.25)
Limited income annual pass	$37.50 plus tax ($40.13)

Do the arithmetic on a normal Saturday. Arrive at 10 and leave at 4 and you are paying six hours, not one day. The county has not said whether the $75 annual beach pass, or the discounted senior, military and limited-income versions, would change under an hourly system.

Weedon Island and Shell Key

Both preserves are owned by the state and maintained by Pinellas County, which is why they were picked. Staff would be reassigned, Cozzie said. Pulling county dollars out would effectively hand day-to-day management back to Tallahassee.

The county has run Weedon Island since 1995 under a 50-year lease that grew out of advocacy by then-Commissioner Barbara Sheen Todd, who worried the site would not be adequately protected under state management. That lease can be terminated with six months' notice, or at the start of any fiscal year in which the county does not appropriate money for upkeep.

Bill Fehring, president of Friends of Weedon Island, warned that walking away would likely cost the public most or all of what the preserve now provides, pointing to its recreational, educational and cultural programming as well as the largest contiguous estuarine wetland in the county. Local conservation volunteers have raised similar concerns about invasive species removal, ranger staffing, native replanting and seagrass and mangrove restoration.

Commissioners are not sold

Commissioner Vince Nowicki said the cuts came from the county administrator, not the elected board, and that he does not support them. There are a lot of other places to tighten our belts, he said. He also floated asking the state to transfer ownership of the preserves to the county outright.

Commissioner Kathleen Peters, whose district includes Weedon Island, called the decisions extremely difficult and said the pending homestead exemption amendment leaves the board little choice but to start cutting now. She called the preserve a gem and said managing the land since 1995 has been an honor.

The calendar between now and a vote

Nothing is settled. Cozzie has said the reductions are still under review as part of the normal approval process. Budget workshops are set for Aug. 20 and Sept. 3, with the two required public hearings on Sept. 10 and Sept. 24. TRIM notices, the estimated tax bills that show property owners what proposed rates would mean for them, were scheduled to go out in the mail on Aug. 17.

The second September hearing is where the millage rates and the budget get adopted. Anything still in the document on Sept. 24 is what the county is doing in October, including the parking meters. Residents who want to speak have five scheduled chances before then. The full proposed budget is posted on the county's FY27 budget page.

Keep up with county decisions that hit your wallet at Pinellas County Community Website, and tell us how an hourly parking rate would change your beach routine when you join the conversation in our Community Forum. For more on the budget and the board, read our government and politics stories, or browse community coverage from around the county.

Header photo: Christopher Hollis / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)