Residents of the Indian Trail Improvement District likely will see an assessment increase of one to six percent in fiscal year 2026, following a unanimous vote by the ITID Board of Supervisors on Monday, July 7.
The supervisors needed to make a decision on assessments prior to July 15 to meet the state’s Truth In Millage (TRIM) deadline. After that date, assessments for the coming year can be decreased, but not increased.
If no major cuts are made to ITID’s planned $23,993,000 budget for fiscal year 2026, property owners in 10 of the district’s 21 units will pay an additional $57.59, for an assessment of $1,004 per acre. Those units are 1 through 5, 7, 9, 10, 13 and 14. One unit (M1H) will see a $199 increase, while another (M1S) will see a $21 decrease. Others fall somewhere in between.
“I don’t like raising assessments,” longtime Supervisor Betty Argue said. “But it is necessary for us to do that or figure out what we’re going to stop doing. It’s really that simple and elementary… I think every single thing in [the budget] is defensible.”
First-year Supervisor Richard Vassalotti was adamant during his 2024 campaign that he was against any assessment increase. Since then, he has learned a lot, he said Tuesday.
“I still don’t want to raise taxes,” he said, “but we’re still playing catch-up [for some previous boards that] kicked the can down the road.”
Supervisors were initially presented by staff with a proposed $24.6 million budget. It would have required a $118 increase for most homeowners, according to data shared by the district.
The major cut in the proposed budget came down from Tallahassee when Gov. Ron DeSantis approved $450,000 to help move engineering and planning forward for construction of the M1 Impoundment, also known as the “640 acres.”
More reductions were found by planning to execute two- and three-year leases for some vehicles and equipment rather than purchase them, ITID Executive Director Burgess Hanson said Tuesday.
“We use some of the equipment so much and so hard, we start seeing major electrical and mechanical issues by the end of that timeframe,” he said. “So, we’re just going to lease, then turn the equipment back in at the end of the lease and lease new equipment.”
Doing so will save on repair costs and down time, he said.
New positions created in the budget include a chief administrative officer to handle day-to-day district issues plus human resources; a “media and marketing specialist” in charge of creating, sharing and analyzing information on social media and other platforms such as television and print, and handle emergency communications; and a part-time operator for a $25,000 drone. The drone will be used for inspecting hard-to-access areas such as canal banks, as well as assessing damage following a windstorm or flooding event.
“Our supervisors are very innovative,” Hanson said. “They’re comfortable with technology… and looking for long-term solutions.”
The biggest discussion during the TRIM session related to the desire of some Unit 20/Santa Rosa Groves property owners to opt out of paying a share of the $1.2 million cost of creating the Aggregate Department. The new department will quarry several types of rock from within ITID to combat the fast-rising costs of such materials purchased commercially and used extensively by the district. The rock will first be dug from the M2 Impoundment and later from the M1.
As with most other units, Unit 20 would pay $59.44 per acre toward the cost of creating and funding the department. Property owners in Unit 20 are required to have at least 5.5 acres, meaning the cost of supporting the Aggregate Department alone would be almost $327.
When other assessment increases are figured in, a Unit 20 property owner would be paying approximately $328 per acre, or $1,804 for 5.5 acres — that’s a $124 per acre increase over the 2025 assessment.
At a Santa Rosa Groves community meeting on July 5, residents floated the idea of opting out of funding the Aggregate Department and having the district purchase road rock and other necessary aggregates, such as those used in canal stabilization, separately and bill Unit 20 alone.
ITID Associate Director and Chief Construction Officer Rob Robinson is looking into the cost/benefits of such a move and will report back to the board.
“We need to be sure this isn’t going to bite us in the behind if we need more rock and dirt than we expect,” said ITID President Elizabeth Accomando, a resident of Unit 20, who attended Saturday’s meeting.
Robinson has said that after initial start-up costs for the department, the district will begin seeing substantial savings on aggregates over the upwardly spiraling costs from commercial vendors.
Hanson warned that if, at that point, Unit 20 residents want to switch to aggregates produced by ITID, they’ll have to pay back to the district the money they saved by declining to participate in the department’s start-up.
The board’s next meeting is set for Wednesday, July 16 at 6 p.m. Fiscal year 2026 begins Oct. 1.
