Fernandina Beach Commission Re-Adopts Millage and Budget After State Flags TRIM Errors

The Fernandina Beach City Commission was forced to reopen and re-adopt its fiscal year 2025–26 millage rate and budget Tuesday after the Florida Department of Revenue determined that advertising errors in the City’s Truth in Millage (TRIM) notices required a rehearing under state law.

City Manager Sarah Campbell opened the meeting with an apology.

“First of all, we owe you an apology…this is the first time in my 20 years in local government that I would have ever had to do a rehearing on the budget, so we owe an apology to the commission and to the community.” 

Campbell explained that two separate TRIM violations — one last year and one this year —triggered the state-mandated do-over. She described how the Department of Revenue reviews the city’s notices annually and “found an error” in 2024 involving both an “adjacency error” and an incorrect ad type.

Although staff corrected the adjacency issue this year, Campbell said the city mistakenly repeated the second error: “We again ran that notice of budget hearing ad…that ad was improper.” 

Because of the errors, the state required the city to re-advertise the proper notice and hold a new public hearing.

Vice Mayor Darron Ayscue questioned the need to advertise a tax increase when the millage stayed flat at 4.6849.

“So then why would we have to advertise that it’s a tax increase?” he asked.

Campbell responded, “Because property values went up, even though the millage rate stayed the same…there’s a net increase to the taxpayer.” 

Ayscue concluded, “Okay, so we are going to see a tax increase,” and Campbell replied, “Yes, sir.” 

City Attorney Teresa Prince clarified for the public that the city did correctly identify the proposed tax increase but created an issue by publishing two ads rather than one.

“It was the two advertisements that was an over-advertisement that required the correction," she said.

Prince also read aloud the required TRIM statement, noting “The percentage increase is 7.37% over the rollback millage rate.” 

Campbell once again delivered a full recap of the 2025-2026 adopted budget for those who had not attended earlier hearings. She reported:

• 32 city funds totaling $240 million

• General Fund at $44 million, an increase of 6.5%

• $600,000 General Fund surplus

• 20% reserve requirement met

• $28 million in capital spending, including

  • $6 million for seawall construction

  • $1.1 million for street resurfacing and sidewalks

  • $2 million for sewer infrastructure

  • $1.3 million for vehicles and equipment

  • $200,000 for MLK improvements

• Major pension reserves of $46 million (general employees) and $54 million (police and fire)

Campbell also highlighted the city’s receipt —earlier that day — of a statewide financial reporting award, calling it “the silver lining in all of this.” 

Commissioner Genece Minshew moved to approve the final millage rate of 4.6849 mils.

The measure passed 4–1 with Ayscue voting not to approve.

The commission then unanimously adopted the amended budget for FY 2025–26 by a 5-0 vote.