by James Coulter
New sidewalks, park trails, playgrounds, and resurfaced streets. These are some of the proposed projects for next fiscal year’s budget to help the City of Lake Wales further implement its award-winning Lake Wales Connected plan.
At their workshop on Wed., Aug 14, 2025, Lake Wales city commissioners were given a presentation by the city’s finance department of the draft for next fiscal year’s budget.
Finance Director Dorothy Abbott and City Manager James Slatton offered several highlights of the proposed project within the city budget. Some notable highlights include:
• Several streetscape projects, including resurfaced city streets (estimated at $750,000), new sidewalks in the Northwest Neighborhood, narrower roadways for 1st Street and A Street, and miscellaneous streetscaping for Lincoln Avenue, Orange Avenue, and Crystal Avenue.
• $350,000 for the Legacy Housing Rehabilitation Program to help 10 homeowners with exterior improvements, and $500,000 for the Code Enforcement Program “to help homeowners address safety issues with their properties.”
• Expansion of the north fire station, construction of a new south fire station at Hunt Brothers Road, and the procurement of a new frontline fire engine and rescue truck.
• Renovations to the city’s sewer and water system, including $1,650,000 for water main extensions, $600,000 for water plant #1 building rehabilitation, $200,000 for water plant #3 Building improvements, and $10,000,000 for construction of various wastewater plant upgrades.
• Improvements to local parks, including a portion of the Ridge Scenic Highway Connector trail, construction of the Crystal Lake Park North Trail segment, $400,000 for the completion of the athletic field lighting at the soccer complex, and $1,550,000 for the design, surveying and construction of a multi-modal trail, a new playground, new pavilions, and other amenities at Kiwanis Park.
Many of these projects were proposed to help the City of Lake Wales further implement its award-winning Lake Wales Connected plan. As the city’s website states, Lake Wales Connected is “a strategy for revitalization of Lake Wales’ historic downtown and one of its most important adjacent neighborhoods.”
Finance Director Abbott expressed her relief in reaching this part of the process with the city’s budget. She claimed this year’s budget was “the hardest budget we have had in years.”
On a positive note, she mentioned how the city has experienced significant economic growth and development in recent years, which has subsequently led to greater growth in the city’s government. “We are in a growth period where the city is growing so fast,” she said. “Each year, the city’s budget keeps growing, which is a testimony that the city is growing. I am seeing growth in every department. All departments are turning in projects of a size that we have not seen because the city is growing.”
City Manager Slaton mentioned that the process of crafting the city’s budget has proven to be “tough”, yet all his staff’s hard work and effort have allowed them to craft a budget “that I feel has met what the city commission [have] asked of us.”
Commissioner Keith Thompson noted the overall difficulty the city has endured in crafting its budget, and he claimed the city could very well face even more difficulty in the near future.
“‘Comfort’ is not going to be a word we use up here to describe the budget,” he said. “I think the word will be ‘tolerate.'”
Deputy Mayor Robin Gibson asked if there was a way for the city to incentivize infill within the city limits and disincentivize developers who would otherwise “chew up the countryside.”
Slaton mentioned how the city had some incentives, including the ability to waive impact fees within core development areas. Gibson suggested a comprehensive study to evaluate water and sewer infrastructure within the city limits.
“I would like for us to move ahead, it might take a year, to comprehensively evaluate where we are with water and sewer,” he said. “That would be a wonderful goal to offer water and sewer, where that is not the case in the countryside.”
