{"id":362677,"date":"2026-08-04T18:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T18:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/362677\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T18:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T18:00:08","slug":"todays-budget-workshop-includes-option-that-hike-fees-for-parks-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/362677\/","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s budget workshop includes option that hike fees for parks & programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Budget Workshop \u2013 8.4.26<\/a><\/p>\n

Cape Coral City Council will discuss options today to balance its desired tax rate against cuts to planned infrastructure and raising fees by 80% to use city parks and amenities.<\/p>\n

Council\u2019s stated tax rate goal is 5.1471 mills. Its not-to-exceed rate is 5.1988 mills. Both exclude the additional 0.1554 mills to repay the $60 million general obligation bond for parks debt service. <\/p>\n

The first option to be presented at today\u2019s budget workshop is to reduce revenue and expenditures \u2013 removing expenditure of $1,500,000 for the Northwest Softball Complex Musco Lighting Replacement at fields one through five. <\/p>\n

This option also includes removing one vacant internal auditor position.<\/p>\n

The second option is to replace revenue with program fees \u2013 parks and recreation program fee adjustments \u2013 with an increase of 80% for athletics, vendors, camps, Youth Center\/South Cape, parking, pavilion rentals, dock fees, and Pop\u2019s Caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

The increase tendered by city staff ignited a firestorm of concern from the community via social media Monday with the Cape Coral Soccer Association and Cape American Baseball each voicing concerns with what would be large increases.<\/p>\n

Cape American Baseball, according to a Facebook post, said \u201cthey were notified that the City Council will be voting on a proposed increase of approximately $24,000 to our yearly fees.\u201d The Cape Coral Soccer Association said they were \u201cnotified that the City Council will be voting on a proposed increase of approximately $53,463 to our yearly fees.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mayor John Gunter also commented on Facebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be advocating to remove this topic from our agenda,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis topic has been brought forward by staff and I oppose any changes to our fee\u2019s at this time. City Council collectively will make the decision, but if it is discussed, I will be a passionate no vote. In my opinion, staff is using this is a scare tactic for the upcoming referendum ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third option is to \u201creplace revenue with interest earnings policy.\u201d This would \u201cestablish a budget policy on interest earnings.\u201d <\/p>\n

The proposed policy states:<\/p>\n

\u201cProposed Policy \u2013 Interest earnings in the General Fund shall be budgeted using a conservative, prudent<\/p>\n

and supportable estimate based on the estimated Budget Stabilization Reserve for the ensuing year and<\/p>\n

shall be treated as variable revenue and shall not be used to support recurring obligations. Interest<\/p>\n

earnings for all other funds are restricted for use in those funds either by law and\/or policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Current budget of $1,325,000 would need to increase to $2,967,783 to cover the reduction in ad valorem revenue, the staff presentation states.<\/p>\n

The workshop will be held at 2 p.m. today in City Council chambers, 1015 Cultural Park Blvd. <\/p>\n

The meeting is open to the public.<\/p>\n

To reach Meghan Bradbury, please email news@breezenewspapers.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Budget Workshop \u2013 8.4.26 Cape Coral City Council will discuss options today to balance its desired tax rate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-362677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}