By James Coulter
Resurfaced city streets, restored alleyways, and refurbished city parks are some of the many projects planned within the city’s $123 million budget for the next fiscal year.
At their regular meeting on Wed., Sept. 3, 2025, Lake Wales city commissioners voted unanimously to approve the budget and millage rate for the next fiscal year.
The budget has an estimated total of $123,558,276, with a general fund estimated at $37,890,370 and operating expenditures that are “14.6% more than last year’s total operating expenditures.”
Many of the projects proposed for the budget were selected to help the city further implement Lake Wales Connected, which, according to the city’s website, is “a long-range plan to revitalize the City’s historic core” that “comprises the downtown historic district and Northwest Neighborhood.”
Such notable projects include $750,000 to resurface city streets, $150,000 to improve streetlight conditions, $150,000 to restripe designated streets, $100,000 for sidewalk repair and construction, and $500,000 to restore alleyways.
Other projects include streetscapes for Lincoln, Orange, and Crystal Avenue, construction of the Crystal Lake Park North Trail, the restoration of Stuart House, and improvements to Kiwanis Park, including a multi-modal trail, a new playground, new pavilions, and other amenities.
The City also adopted a millage rate of 8.0462 mills, “which is greater than the rolled-back rate of 6.6772 mills by 20.50%”
During public comments, one local homeowner, Pamela Foster, spoke against the proposed millage rate increase. As someone who is disabled and moved into the city two years ago, she claimed the increase would not only increase her property taxes, but also potentially take away a homestead exemption.
“The tax increase is not reflective of the marketplace today in Florida,” she said. “My home did not go up in value [the way] that you want to raise the property taxes for.”
Deputy Mayor Robin Gibson insisted the millage rate increase was necessary to return to the rolled-back rate that the city had been building up for the past several years.
“Finally, it has come due, and we simply, in my view, have to do this,” he said. “This is simply where we find ourselves.”
Commissioner Carol Gillespie commended the city staff for creating the budget. She noted the hard work staff members went through to put the budget together.
“In order to make the budget come out even, there were not many options,” she explained. “To me, that is an answer to Ms. Foster. Even though housing prices are going down, the city has a lot of activities that it is responsible for, and the cost of that is going up. We have the best people working on our budget, and they are doing an excellent job.”
