SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — The latest penny sales tax approved by Seminole County voters went into effect in January 2015.
The money will go toward things like road construction and building new schools. Some 170 new projects are earmarked for the funding.
Those projects include widening State Road 46 between Mellonville Avenue and State Road 416 near Sanford and rebuilding the five-way intersection of State Road 434.
But Channel 9 reporter Shannon Butler looked back at the money collected through the penny sales tax since 1991, and there are questions about what it really going on with your money. And she found out why money dating back 25 years still hasn't been spent.
The cost of doing business is expensive. Widening roads, putting in new sidewalks and extending bike trails are not inexpensive projects. That's why counties, like Seminole, ask you to pony up your pennies to help build. The latest penny sales tax vote will raise an estimated $733 million through 2024.
But Seminole already has more than $100 million left and unspent from the 1991 and 2001 sales tax votes.
Seminole's deputy county manager says the numbers aren't what they seem.
“Of the $970 million we've spent approximately $850 already,” said Deputy County Manager Bruce McMenemy. “The money that's left, really can be allocated to the interest earnings and leverage funding. All the tax dollars have been allocated.”
But projects with the money still haven't been completed. Sidewalks, storm drains and bike lanes promised along Wymore Road are not finished.
But county staffers say some are delayed because they have many moving parts. Some get stalled because of court battles over land and even the I-4 construction has halted others because most of the area's top engineers are working on the interstate.
The county says by this October, 90 percent of the projects being built with the 1991 money will be in construction, and 70 percent of those funded with the 2001 tax money will be underway.
“To say we have got to spend the money because it's there, that's not something we've done, and I don't think we ever will,” McMenemy said.
Commissioners Bob Dallari and Brenda Carey were vocal about getting staff to move on these projects, but neither would talk with Channel 9 about it.
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