A citizen-focused look at the City’s FY2025–26 General Fund, the services it supports, and how property taxes fit into the larger revenue picture.
The General Fund is Longwood's main operating budget. The figures below show current General Fund revenue, the FY2026 adopted spending plan, property-tax revenue, and the share of current General Fund revenue provided by property taxes.
These are the major operating categories in Longwood's adopted FY2026 General Fund. The chart excludes the $405,000 transfer out so residents can see department and facility spending separately.
Residents experience the budget through police and fire response, roads, parks, planning, technology, finance, and daily city operations.
Fire suppression, emergency medical response, rescue, prevention, inspections, and emergency management.
Patrol, investigations, traffic enforcement, school resource programs, records, evidence, and community policing.
City Commission, Clerk, Manager, Attorney, General Services, and Human Resources.
Accounting, budgeting, purchasing, utility billing, payroll, and financial reporting.
Street maintenance, transportation work, and other public-works functions supported by the General Fund.
Parks, recreation programs, community events, facilities, and neighborhood amenities.
Citywide technology support, infrastructure, cybersecurity, applications, and communications systems.
Planning, zoning, economic development, code compliance, and development review.
General Fund support for other City facilities.
Longwood directly operates and budgets both Police and Fire services in its General Fund.
The adopted General Fund includes $7,263,048 for Law Enforcement. The department has 50 authorized positions in the FY2026 budget.
The adopted General Fund includes $7,473,593 for Fire and Rescue. The department operates from two fire stations and has 44.5 authorized positions in the FY2026 budget.
Property taxes are pooled with other General Fund revenues. This comparison shows spending scale and is not a legal earmark of each property-tax dollar.
Longwood's General Fund combines property taxes with sales and use taxes, service charges, intergovernmental revenue, franchise fees, transfers, and other sources.
Property taxes are the largest single General Fund source at $11,425,406. They account for approximately 46.0% of current General Fund revenue and transfers before use of fund balance.
The parcel-tier file contains 14,867 mapped residential parcels. Assessed value is the more useful measure for discussing taxable value and homestead exemptions.
The Florida League of Cities analysis reports averages for 3,654 Longwood homestead parcels. These figures describe current exemptions and Save Our Homes effects, not a city revenue-loss projection.
The published Longwood data shows an average of $179,687 in combined value protected by Save Our Homes and the first and second homestead exemptions. The combined average protected share is 59.31%.
Market value is an estimate of selling price. Assessed value is the value used before exemptions to calculate taxable value and is the more relevant measure for this comparison.
The parcel-tier file does not identify how many parcels in each value tier are homesteaded. The Florida League of Cities dataset separately reports 3,654 homestead parcels and a median assessed value of $179,152. Therefore, this page does not claim an exact homestead-only percentage below $250,000.
Property taxes are a major General Fund revenue source, but they are not the only source supporting Longwood's day-to-day services.
The adopted budget provides a comparable General Fund total for FY2025 and FY2026.
Spending can be reduced, but the practical question is which services, positions, contracts, projects, or maintenance cycles would change. This page does not label spending as necessary or wasteful without a separate operational or performance review.
Longwood operates its own Fire and Rescue Department. The FY2026 General Fund includes $7,473,593 for Fire and Rescue.
The adopted budget uses $596,370 of existing fund balance. That is prior-year money, not new current-year revenue.
No. It explains the current adopted budget and property-value data.
The tier file covers 14,867 mapped residential parcels, while the FLC homestead dataset reports 3,654 homestead parcels.
City budget figures were taken from Longwood's FY2026 adopted budget. Property-value and homestead figures came from the project datasets listed below.
