Cape Coral council told staff the 80 percent parks fee increase is off the table, and the resolution that would raise those fees is still on Wednesday's agenda

Every member of the Cape Coral City Council declined an 80 percent increase in parks and recreation fees at Tuesday afternoon's budget workshop, and Mayor John Gunter told families in the chamber that the option was off the table.

The resolution that would raise those fees is on Wednesday's council agenda anyway.

Resolution 198-26 appears under New Business on the published agenda for the regular meeting at 4 p.m. in Council Chambers. The city's own entry values it at an additional $1.9 million from fees. It is an amending resolution in a chain running back through five earlier ones to 2021, and what it amends is the schedule of fees charged to people using Parks and Recreation facilities and programs.

That is not a contradiction so much as a matter of timing. Agendas are published before workshops finish, a workshop takes no vote, and an item can be pulled at the changes to agenda step that comes near the top of every Cape Coral meeting. What Tuesday produced was a direction to staff and a clear statement of position from eight people, which is worth a great deal and is not the same thing as the item being gone.

The staff presentation behind Tuesday's session sets out why anyone proposed the increase.

Cape Coral's taxable value certified by the Property Appraiser on July 1 is $33,099,276,068. At the rolled-back rate of 5.1988 mills, collected at 96 percent, that raises $165,193,456. At 5.1471 mills, the rate council wants to keep, it raises $163,550,672. The difference is $1,642,783, and that number is the entire problem.

City Manager Michael Ilczyszyn told the workshop that staff had originally built a balanced budget on the higher rolled-back rate, and that once a majority of council said it wanted to hold the current rate, staff were sent to find the difference somewhere else. State restrictions and the stage of the budget year, he said, left user fees and interest earnings among the few revenue options still open.

Three options went on the screen. Only one of them was the fee increase.

The first cuts $1,500,000 for replacement lighting at the Northwest Softball Complex on fields one through five. The presentation describes that lighting as 35 years old, missing fixtures since Hurricane Ian, and standing on poles going obsolete as the rest of the world moves to LED. Six leagues use those fields, five adult and one youth, bringing in $68,000 in registration and $11,500 in field rentals. The same option removes one vacant internal auditor position, and its own footnote says the expense reduction depends on unidentified quality of life cuts in the two following years, which would take the forecast FY 2028 shortfall from $7,312,980 to $9,005,046 and FY 2029 from $12,856,779 to $14,599,608.

The second was the 80 percent increase, applied to athletics, vendors, camps, the Youth Center and South Cape, parking, pavilion rentals, dock fees and Pop's Cafe.

The third changes no fee and cuts no field. It would set a budget policy on interest earnings in the General Fund, lifting the budgeted figure from $1,325,000 to $2,967,783. That difference is $1,642,783, the deficit to the dollar. District 7 Councilmember Rachel Kaduk said she would rather fill the gap that way than raise recreation fees.

Word of the second option reached the leagues before the workshop did.

The Cape Coral Breeze reported on Tuesday morning that Cape American Baseball had posted on Facebook that it was notified of a proposed increase of approximately $24,000 to its yearly fees, and that the Cape Coral Soccer Association put its own figure at approximately $53,463. WINK News quoted Cape American Baseball president Deanna Livingston describing the same notification differently, saying her email told her that annual fees would go from $2,000 to $24,000. This site does not hold that email and leaves the two accounts as each newsroom reported them.

Gunter had already posted on Facebook on Monday that he opposed the change. "I will be advocating to remove this topic from our agenda," he wrote, adding that the topic came from staff rather than from council.

He opened Tuesday's workshop with the same point and did not move off it. "I am not going to support the park fee increases," Gunter said, telling the room that if the city were ever to raise fees he would want an incremental approach. By the end of the session every member had indicated the same, and the mayor apologised to the families who had come. "That option is off the table," he said.

Two of the three options are still standing, which is the part worth carrying forward, because the $1,642,783 has not moved and somebody has to find it before the budget is adopted.

There is a fourth lever on page nine of the same presentation that nobody has had to invent. The city is carrying 22 vacant General Fund positions worth $2,699,294 in FY 2027 payroll, which is more than the deficit and more than the softball lighting and the fee increase put together. The internal auditor post that option one would delete is one of them, and it has been vacant for 726 days.

None of this can push the tax rate up. Council advertised a maximum of 5.1988 mills on July 22, and under Florida law the rate adopted in September can sit at or below what was advertised and never above it. The two hearings that fix it are on September 10 and September 24, both at 5.05 p.m.

The next budget workshops are August 11 and August 18 at 2 p.m.