Revenue overview
The City of Ocoee collects revenue from property taxes, state shared revenues, utility and franchise taxes, permits and charges for services. Revenue growth over the past ten fiscal years closely tracks the City's own growth in population and assessed property value. Revenues across all governmental funds grew from $38.0M in FY2016 to $77.5M in FY2025, a 104% increase driven by growth, not rate increases.
Why are revenues rising? Florida municipalities are tightly limited in how they may raise revenue. The main driver is rising assessed property values across the region, not rate increases. Ocoee's millage fell in seven of the last nine years and has been held at 4.9500 mills since FY2023, including the FY2027 budget adopted September 23, 2026. Taxable property value grew from $1.95 billion in FY2016 to $5.86 billion on the 2026 tax roll that funds FY2027.
FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report: Table 5 (Changes in Fund Balances of Governmental Funds), Table 6 (Assessed Value and Estimated Actual Value of Taxable Property), Table 7 (Property Tax Rates), Table 14 (Demographic and Economic Statistics), and the General Fund Statement of Revenues, Expenditures and Changes in Fund Balances, pages 20 to 21. FY2026 and FY2027 taxable values come from the Property Appraiser's 2026 Certification of Taxable Value (Form DR 420), certified June 30, 2026: $5,465,590,232 final gross taxable value for 2025 and $5,859,466,089 gross taxable value for 2026, an increase of 7.2%. New construction added $213,670,616. FY2027 governmental fund totals are from the adopted budget summary advertised September 20, 2026. The population series for FY2016 to FY2025 comes from Table 14. The City's current population is 52,935.
Where the money is spent
The General Fund is the City's main operating fund. It pays for the services residents use every day. The FY2027 adopted General Fund is $74.3 million, and 55 cents of every dollar is budgeted for public safety. In FY2025, the latest audited year, the City spent $60.2 million and 46 cents of every General Fund dollar went to police, fire and inspections. The remainder funded streets and fleet, parks and recreation, city administration, and capital improvements.
Service by service cost detail, FY2025 actuals
Each card shows total cost, cost per resident, and that service's share of General Fund spending.
What is driving the increase? The largest single driver of spending growth is public safety. Police and fire grew from $14.8M in FY2016 to $27.7M in FY2025, an 88% increase over ten years, against 22% population growth. This reflects roughly 63 net new public safety positions, rising personnel costs driven by market wages and benefits, and increased costs for specialized equipment such as fire apparatus and patrol vehicles.
FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, General Fund Statement of Revenues, Expenditures and Changes in Fund Balances, Budget and Actual, pages 20 to 21. Per resident figures use the FY2025 population of 51,209 from Table 14, the population for that audited year. The City's current population is 52,935. These reflect the City's cost to deliver each service, not amounts individual residents pay.
Public safety funding
The audited data show that in every year from FY2016 through FY2025, Ocoee spent more on police and fire alone than it collected in property taxes from every property in the city combined. In FY2025 the City spent $27.7M on public safety while collecting $22.2M in General Fund property tax, a gap of $5.6M. Property tax revenue alone does not cover public safety; it requires supplementation from state shared revenues, utility taxes, permits and service charges.
The FY2027 adopted budget shows the same pattern. Police ($25.49M) and Fire ($14.55M) total $40.05M, while General Fund property tax is budgeted at $27.55M. Police and Fire equal 145% of the City's property tax revenue.
FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report: Table 3 (Governmental Activities Tax Revenues by Source), Table 5, Table 16 (City Government Employees by Function), and the General Fund statement, pages 20 to 21. Fire personnel counts firefighters, fire officers and fire civilian staff from Table 16. Fire inspectors are excluded because inspections are reported separately as a service; including them raises the FY2025 figure from 74.5 to 77.5. See data notes.
Your tax dollar: Ocoee is only one piece
When you pay your annual property tax bill, only a portion goes to the City of Ocoee. The majority is collected by the School Board and Orange County for their own services. Here is how the tax rates break down among the taxing authorities. The City rate is 4.9500 mills in FY2025, FY2026 and FY2027.
Estimate your own bill
Type your home's assessed value or pick an amount. The figures update as you go.
Estimate only. Your actual bill depends on your exemptions, your parcel's location and any special assessments. School, County, Library and water district rates are the FY2025 rates from the audited report; those agencies set their own FY2027 rates.
| Taxing authority | Millage | % of total |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 16.3878 | 100.0% |
Example: On a homestead assessed at $350,000, the total annual property tax at these rates is about $5,064. Of that, the City of Ocoee receives about $1,478 a year, or $123 a month, funding police, fire, roads, parks, stormwater, code enforcement, planning and all city services.
FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Table 7 (Property Tax Rates, Direct and Overlapping Governments). Cross checked against the 2024 Taxing Authority Code Descriptions published by the Florida Department of Revenue for Orange County.
2026 non ad valorem assessments
Ocoee's annual tax bill can contain charges that are not ad valorem property taxes. The 2026 Orange County Property Appraiser summary lists these City non ad valorem assessments separately from millage based taxes.
| 2026 assessment | Parcels | Listed rate | Total assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fire Rescue | 16,327 | $383.90 residential | $9,638,112.92 |
| Residential sanitation | 15,262 | $349.24 | $5,351,055.28 |
| Stormwater | 16,790 | Varies by parcel / unit | $3,887,989.42 |
| Code enforcement | 7 | Parcel specific | $3,833.16 |
| Septic to sewer | 19 | Parcel specific | $19,496.82 |
| Total | 17,971 total roll parcels | Not applicable | $18,900,487.60 |
How the 2026 roll compares with 2025
The 2025 roll was billed in November 2025 and funds FY2026. The 2026 roll is billed in November 2026 and funds FY2027. Both columns count only amounts placed on the Property Appraiser's roll.
| Assessment | 2025 roll | 2026 roll | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fire Rescue | $4,941,281 16,012 parcels at $139.23 per unit | $9,638,113 16,327 parcels, new method at 45% | +$4,696,832 (+95.1%) |
| Residential sanitation | $5,091,905 $344.42 per home | $5,351,055 $349.24 per home | +$259,150 (+5.1%) |
| Stormwater | $3,779,762 | $3,887,989 | +$108,228 (+2.9%) |
| Code enforcement liens | $2,710 4 parcels | $3,833 7 parcels | +$1,123 |
| Septic to sewer | None | $19,497 19 parcels | New |
| Total on the roll | $13,815,658 | $18,900,488 | +$5,084,829 (+36.8%) |
Almost all of the increase is the Fire Assessment. Stormwater also has about $150,000 a year billed directly by the City, mostly to City owned parcels and homeowner association tracts, which is not on the roll: $141,795 in 2025 and $152,533 in 2026.
Do not add these amounts to the $27.55M General Fund ad valorem line. Non ad valorem assessments are separate billing mechanisms for particular services or obligations. Also, a gross tax roll assessment is not necessarily the same as the amount budgeted as revenue after collection assumptions, exemptions, timing and accounting treatment. For example, the 2026 roll shows $9.638M of Fire Rescue assessments while the FY2027 adopted General Fund budgets $8.023M in current Fire Protection Fee revenue.
Source: Orange County Property Appraiser and Comprehensive Appraisal Technology, 2026 City of Ocoee Special Taxing District Summary, with the 2025 roll comparison from the City's 2026 assessment summary worksheet; City of Ocoee FY2027 Adopted Budget, General Fund revenue detail.
FY2026 and FY2027 adopted budgets
Everything above reports audited results through FY2025. This section covers the years ahead. Both budgets are adopted: FY2026 runs through September 30, 2026, and the Commission adopted FY2027 on September 23, 2026. Budget figures are citywide. They include the water, wastewater, sanitation and stormwater utilities, which the audited governmental funds statements exclude, so they are not directly comparable with the earlier charts.
Two new funds and a growing CRA. The FY2027 adopted budget creates an Emergency Medical Services fund of $3.80M, with 12 full time paramedics, a training and EMS captain, a billing coordinator and 6 part time paramedics, and a separate Building fund of $2.10M. The Community Redevelopment Agency grows from $3.5M in FY2025 actual to $12.3M adopted in FY2026 and $18.4M adopted for FY2027, reflecting the downtown redevelopment program. Together these account for most of the citywide increase.
| Full time positions | FY2025 | FY2026 adopted | FY2027 adopted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Police Department | 141 | 141 | 141 |
| Fire Department | 75 | 78 | 77 |
| Emergency Medical Services (new) | Not applicable | Not applicable | 14 |
| All other departments | 208 | 217 | 222 |
| Total full time | 424 | 436 | 454 |
FY2027 Adopted Budget, Budget Summary, Revenues and Expenditures (Summary by Fund), and the FY2026 and FY2027 staffing plans. Budgetary basis, all funds. These figures are prepared on a different basis from the audited statements used elsewhere on this page: they include interfund transfers and the enterprise utilities. FY2027 was adopted September 23, 2026.
Service and activity measures
Budget figures describe what a city spends. These describe what it does. The City reports service volumes each year in the statistical section of its audited financial report, the calls answered, inspections completed, and infrastructure maintained that the spending on this page pays for.
Infrastructure grows with the city. Since FY2016 Ocoee has added 14 miles of paved streets, 135 fire hydrants, 12 miles of water main and 5 lift stations, and its water utility has taken on 3,460 additional customers. That growth is a large part of why operating costs rise even when the tax rate does not.
FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Table 17 (Operating Indicators by Function) and Table 18 (Capital Assets Statistics by Function). Fire and rescue emergency calls are the sum of the vehicle, fire and all other categories reported in Table 17.
Regional comparisons
Two measures put the City in regional context: the operating property tax rate and reported municipal spending per resident. The charts show Ocoee alongside comparable Central Florida cities; neither measure by itself is a complete measure of tax burden, service level or governmental performance.
Millage rate snapshot
Rate stability
For a home with $300,000 of taxable value, the difference between Ocoee's rate and the fifteen city average is about $51 per year in city property tax. This comparison does not measure differences in service levels, assessments, debt or special districts.
Spending comparison
At the fifteen city average spending rate, the same population would correspond to about $10.0 million more in annual General Fund spending. This is a comparison, not a spending target.
Across the same fifteen cities, reported spending ranges from $530 per resident in Winter Springs to $2,291 in Winter Park. Differences can reflect service structure, population, fund accounting and local policy.
Millage from the 2024 Taxing Authority Code Descriptions, Florida Department of Revenue (Orange, Seminole and Lake counties). Spending per resident computed from Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research municipal expenditure data for FY2024, using each city's population as reported in the same dataset. General Fund only; excludes transfers between funds.
Fund balance and debt measures
Fund balance provides resources for emergencies, revenue shortfalls and other unplanned costs. Ocoee's unassigned General Fund balance was $30.3M at September 30, 2025, equal to 40.0% of annual General Fund spending including transfers to other City funds. The Government Finance Officers Association recommends a minimum of two months of operating expenditures, about 16.7%.
FY2025 expenditures exceeded revenue. Expenditures of $87.4M exceeded $77.5M in revenue, with $23.2M of capital outlay. The difference was funded from accumulated reserves. The unassigned General Fund balance was $30.3M at September 30, 2025.
FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Table 4 (Fund Balances of Governmental Funds) and Table 5. Percentage computed against FY2025 General Fund expenditures of $75,801,282, which includes transfers to other City funds. Counting operating expenditures only, the same reserve equals 50.3%. The City has no adopted reserve policy; the figure shown is the one the Finance Department reports.
Ten years of city finances
Every figure below is drawn from audited financial statements. Check any of it against the source documents linked in the sidebar.
| Fiscal year | Revenues | Expenditures | GF balance | Unassigned | Millage | Assessed value | Population | Employees |
|---|
Revenues and expenditures cover all governmental funds (Table 5). Fund balances from Table 4. Millage from Table 7. Assessed value from Table 6 (assessed value of taxable property, before exemptions). Population from Table 14. Employee counts from Table 16 and include both full and part time positions.
Over the period shown, revenue, population and taxable value changed while the operating millage rate declined. Police and Fire spending exceeds current ad valorem revenue. Reported General Fund spending per resident is below the fifteen city average, and the unassigned General Fund balance was 40.0% of annual General Fund spending at September 30, 2025.
Data notes and known discrepancies
Public financial data does not always line up perfectly because reports count different funds, use different accounting rules, and are published at different times. The notes below explain the basis used for each chart and document the reconciliations made through the September 25, 2026 update.
Show the full reconciliation detail, what was checked, and every place the sources differ
What was checked
Every ten year series on this page was compared line by line against the FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report: property tax (Table 3), fund balances (Table 4), revenues, expenditures and public safety spending (Table 5), assessed value (Table 6), millage (Table 7), population (Table 14), staffing (Table 16), and service calls, arrests and emergency calls (Table 17). All fifteen peer millage rates were checked against the 2024 Florida Department of Revenue Taxing Authority Code Descriptions for Orange, Seminole and Lake counties. All fifteen per resident spending figures were recomputed from the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research municipal workbooks. The FY2025 service costs and revenue sources add exactly to the audited General Fund totals of $60,211,321 and $64,245,480.
Where sources disagree
| Item | What the sources say | What this page does |
|---|---|---|
| FY2022 General Fund spending | The FY2024 budget book shows $78,712,989 in one place and $60,709,228 in another. The finance system shows $78,712,989 as the adopted budget and $60,709,228 as the actual result. | Uses $60,709,228. Confirmed by the Finance Department and by the FY2024 book's own expenditure summary. |
| Property tax: two figures | Table 3 reports $25,476,181 for FY2025 across all governmental activities, on the accrual basis, including the Community Redevelopment Agency increment. The General Fund statement reports $22,162,066 of ad valorem tax. | Uses both, in different places. The revenue section uses the wider Table 3 figure; the public safety section uses the narrower General Fund figure. Each chart says which. |
| Reserves as a share of spending | $30,309,046 of unassigned balance is 40.0% of General Fund spending including transfers to other funds, or 50.3% counting operating spending only. The City has no adopted reserve policy. A former Finance Director set an informal 35% target. | Shows 40.0%, the figure the Finance Department reports. The alternative is stated in the source note. A formal policy would settle this. |
| Fire staffing | Table 16 lists firefighters, fire officers, fire inspectors and fire civilian staff separately. Including inspectors gives 77.5 for FY2025; excluding them gives 74.5. The FY2025 budget book instead shows the Fire Department at 75 full time and 1 part time position. | Uses firefighters, officers and civilian staff, excluding inspectors, because inspections are reported separately as a service. The FY2017 figure was corrected from 50 to 51. |
| Police staffing | Table 16 shows 92 sworn and 20 support for FY2025. Table 17 shows 141 police employees. The FY2025 budget book shows 140 full time positions. | Uses Table 16. The three counts use different conventions and are not directly comparable. |
| FY2026 and FY2027 budget totals | The latest FY2027 budget summary reports FY2026 citywide budget of $137,180,516, FY2027 citywide budget of $140,563,469, FY2026 General Fund of $77,222,251 and FY2027 General Fund of $74,260,951. | Uses the latest detailed Summary of Revenues/Expenditures by Fund. Earlier narrative totals are treated as prior/different budget presentations rather than the controlling figures for this page. |
| Budget by fund chart, FY2024 and FY2025 | The FY2024 and FY2025 columns are actual results; FY2026 and FY2027 are adopted budgets. | Keeps the four year bridge because the chart explicitly labels actual versus budget. It is a trend/context chart, not a like for like actual performance comparison. |
| FY2026 and FY2027 values | The audit does not yet cover FY2026 or FY2027. The FY2027 adopted budget and the City's September 20, 2026 TRIM advertisements are the newest official sources. | Taxable value comes from the Property Appraiser's certified DR 420 form: $5.47 billion for FY2026 and $5.86 billion for FY2027, up 7.2%. The FY2027 budget message lists an "adjusted taxable value" of $5.94 billion, up 11.8%, which does not match the certified form; the certified figures are used here and Finance has been asked to review the budget message. |
| Millage year and location | The tax estimator uses the FY2025 rates from Table 7, totalling 16.3878 mills. The fifteen city comparison uses 2024 final rates from the Department of Revenue. Ocoee also spans two water management districts, so a 2024 bill totals 16.4028 or 16.4536 mills depending on the parcel. | Uses the St. Johns district rate, which covers most of the city. The difference is about five cents per $1,000 of taxable value. |
| Parks staffing subtotals | In the FY2018 budget book the Parks line items add to 19.5 for FY2015/16 against a printed total of 18.5. In the FY2019 book they add to 20 against a printed 22. The FY2017/18 organizational chart shows 20.5 positions against a summary page reading 21.5, and the chart is cut off at the bottom. | Uses the printed totals and does not adjust them. Likely related to director positions split half and half between Parks and Recreation. |
| General Fund revenue, FY2017 and FY2018 | The finance system recorded a beginning cash balance as revenue in those two years, $2,584,825 and $3,960,740. It budgeted one in FY2019 but recorded none, and the entry disappears after that. | Removes it from both years so the nine year General Fund chart is on one basis. |
| Audited versus finance system | The audited report and the finance system differ modestly for the same year. FY2025 General Fund revenue is $64,245,480 audited against $73,527,813 in the system, the difference being transfers in, lease financing and state retirement contributions, plus year end audit adjustments. | Uses audited figures everywhere except the nine year General Fund chart, which the audited report does not provide. That chart names the finance system as its source. |
Prepared by the Information Technology Department. Questions about any figure on this page can be directed to the Finance Department at (407) 905-3100.