Voters may feel déjà vu when they go to the ballot boxes on Nov. 5. After 2023’s failed referendum asking for $35.5 million in bonds for an Oviedo police building — which saw 64% of voters voting against it — they may see a new referendum on this year’s ballot, though it will be slightly less than the 2023 request.
The Oviedo Police Department, whose main building dates back to 1990.
The request for the proposed 2024 referendum is for up to $20.4 million in general obligation bonds, which would be paid through property taxes. That would be combined with the $11.4 million in bonds passed in 2016 to help fund all or part of a new public safety building.
In its June 17 meeting, Oviedo City Council voted 4-1, with Mayor Megan Sladek opposing, to advance the referendum option to a July 15 public hearing, the next required step in the process.
Sladek said she opposed advancing the referendum because she would rather look at other options, such as the 1-cent sales tax, to pay for the building instead of through property taxes. Especially, she said, with other large upcoming projects, such as updates to the West Mitchell Hammock water treatment facility and stormwater system improvements, on the horizon. Those projects would most likely lead to an increase in residents’ water rates, she said.
“Our list [of projects] is longer than what we’re going to have enough money to do with it,” she said. “My preference is take anything where we can turn it into a fee and just be honest with people and say, ‘Look, this is what it costs to run a water plant … and the same thing for stormwater.’”
Council member Natalie Teuchert said while the police building is on the 1-cent sales tax project list, using the funds from that pot for the building could prevent the city from completing other infrastructure projects.
“We use half of the 1-cent sales tax [funds] every year to pave roads and do sidewalks,” she said. “That’s not going to go away.”
Oviedo Finance Director Jerry Boop said he is researching whether funds from the 1-cent sales tax can be used to pay off the potential bonds for the new police building.
The proposed ballot question for the police building bond referendum would be:
Oviedo Public Safety Building Project; General Obligation Bonds.
The Oviedo Public Safety Building project requires an estimated $31,815,822 to construct. Voters approved $11,400,000 for the project in 2016. Shall the City issue additional bonds not exceeding $20,415,822 bearing interest not exceeding maximum legal rates pledging the City’s full faith and credit for up to thirty years from date of issuance, payable from ad valorem taxes on all City taxable property, without limitation as to rate or amount, as provided in Ordinance No. 1745?
Yes – For Bonds [ ]
No – Against Bonds [ ]
The new referendum is based on the cost for the construction of a new 28,800-square-foot building and 10,000 square feet of additional space that would not be finished until a future date. The plan with the 2023 referendum funds would have been for a new 47,000-square-foot complex.
The larger complex was based off of a 2017 space-needs study, while the new, lower-cost option was based on a 2018 study that focused on cost savings. The fact that the 2018 study was not used for the original referendum irked some officials.
“I wish they would have given us the … basic necessities version of it in the first place,” Sladek said. “A lot of us went out on a limb, and we believed that we truly needed the bigger station, and we spoke as if we needed the bigger station.
“I feel foolish. It puts us all as elected officials in a really uncomfortable … place because I feel like I should be able to believe what I am told from professionals, and I was told this and I believed it and I presented [it] as fact,” she said.
The larger proposal would have allowed for longer-term ability to house its needs, while the new one may lead to another space crunch sooner. However, it would still be an upgrade from the current building, which the department moved into in 1990. According to U.S. Census data, since the police station was built, Oviedo’s population grew from about 11,000 residents to just over 40,000 in the last census estimate in 2020.
“It’ll still work long term, it’s just not the 100% ideal solution,” Teuchert said. “I also think with 29,000 square feet they can find a way to make it work. I mean, we’ve been out of room [in the current building] for almost 15 to 20 years now, and we’re making it work even though we shouldn’t.
“If there’s one big sore spot [in] the city right now, for me it’s having our police department sit in that building,” she said. “It’s not somewhere anybody should have to go every day and work. It’s in terrible condition. So as far as the riskiest thing to do is to not address the problem.”
To find more affordable options, in its Feb. 5 meeting, City Council approved a piggyback agreement with Osceola County and facility construction consulting firm ZHA Inc.
A piggyback agreement is one that allows for the city to take advantage of competitively bid pricing from another government entity — in this case, Osceola County — that is equivalent to or better than the pricing the city could achieve on its own, which can save money and time.
After evaluating Oviedo’s needs, ZHA updated its estimated total costs for potential options:
- Build a new 28,800-square-foot police building – $26.3 million
- Build a new 28,800-square-foot police building and 10,000 square feet of shelled space – $31.8 million
- Renovate the existing public safety building and add a 10,000 square foot annex – $22.2 million
Cost estimates were based on a number of factors, including similar projects around the state in areas such as Northport, Brevard County, Daytona and Casselberry.
“It’s pretty good stuff,” council member Keith Britton said. “We call it parametric estimating. You take a bunch of different samples and you do some averages. At this stage of the game, it’s hard to get an exact number, but it comes out to be a pretty close number if you do it right.”
The proposed timeline for the new building and shell space would be between 24 and 26 months, while the renovation and annex construction option would take between 23 and 25 months to complete.
City Manager Bryan Cobb said the city is focusing now on using the funds from the potential bonds for the 28,800-square-foot building and the 10,000 square-foot shell, rather than the option to renovate the current building.
“We absolutely need a bond referendum to make this happen,” Teuchert said. “It’s too much of a cost to do it any other way.”
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