Last month, Sarasota County commissioners directed Administrator Jonathan Lewis to work with constitutional officers to find the cuts needed to halt a looming shortfall projected to sink county finances into the red within three years.
But since then, the Tax Collector’s budget instead went up, the Sarasota Sheriff has held firm on a $23 million increase, and commissioners are now blasting what they contend has been a lackluster effort to trim excess spending without raising taxes.
Lewis sent emails to those elected officers on July 8 citing a modest 4% increase in county revenues – and reinforcing how the current spending path would outpace those collections and dig the county deeper in the hole…