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 the City's main operating budget. The figures below show recurring General Fund revenue, the FY2026 adopted spending plan, property-tax revenue, and the share of recurring General Fund revenue provided by property taxes.
The listed department amounts total $77,222,246, only $5 below the exact adopted total because the source figures are displayed at whole-dollar precision.
Residents do not experience a budget as accounting lines. They experience it as services: public safety, parks, maintenance, infrastructure, technology, planning, and city operations.
Patrol, investigations, traffic enforcement, public-safety response, and law-enforcement operations.
Fire suppression, emergency medical response, prevention, and related public-safety operations.
Roads, facilities, infrastructure maintenance, fleet support, and city operational services.
Parks, recreation, community programs, public spaces, events, and quality-of-life services.
City management, finance, legal, human resources, purchasing, records, and citywide support.
Planning, development review, permitting, inspections, zoning, and community growth management.
City management, finance, legal, human resources, purchasing, records, and citywide support.
Technology systems, communications, cybersecurity, and digital service support.
City management, finance, legal, human resources, purchasing, records, and citywide support.
City services and operating functions supported through the General Fund.
City management, finance, legal, human resources, purchasing, records, and citywide support.
City services and operating functions supported through the General Fund.
Police and fire are the two largest General Fund departments, accounting for approximately 51.2% of adopted spending.
Law enforcement, patrol, investigations, emergency response, training and related staffing.
City-operated fire suppression and emergency medical response reflected in the General Fund.
The budget notes an approximately $2 million increase in fire-assessment revenue to help offset rising costs.
Property taxes are pooled with other General Fund revenues. This comparison shows relative spending scale and is not a legal earmark of each property-tax dollar.
The eight detailed lines reconcile to $77,222,251 in total General Fund resources. Percentages in the chart include cash balance and carryover so the displayed categories total 100%.
The adopted budget shows $33,836,343 from Ad Valorem / Property Tax. That equals 43.8% of total General Fund resources when carryover is included, and 45.8% of operating revenue when carryover is excluded.
This section groups mapped residential parcels into assessed-value ranges reported in the supplied property data. Assessed value is the value used as the starting point for taxable value after Florida assessment limits and exemptions. The ranges help residents see how many properties fall at or below, and above, the $250,000 threshold being discussed.
Each bar shows the share of residential parcels in that assessed-value range. The percentages use the 10,911-parcel assessed-value total as the denominator.
The Florida League of Cities analysis reports averages for Ocoee homestead parcels. These figures describe current exemptions and Save Our Homes effects, not a city revenue-loss projection. Unlike the assessed-value distribution above, these figures describe homesteaded parcels and the protection provided by Save Our Homes and existing homestead exemptions.
The published homestead data for Ocoee shows that current law already shields a meaningful portion of qualifying home value through Save Our Homes and homestead exemptions. The reported combined protected share is 54.48%.
Only a small share of homestead value is already protected under current law.
The published city-level homestead figures above show the measured effect of Save Our Homes and existing exemptions before any proposed reform.
Understanding the difference between market value and assessed value is important when discussing Florida property taxes. Market value represents the estimated selling price of a property under current market conditions. Assessed value is determined by the County Property Appraiser using Florida law and is the basis for calculating taxable value after assessment limitations, such as Save Our Homes, and applicable exemptions are applied.
Proposed homestead-exemption changes would affect the assessed or taxable value of qualifying homesteaded properties, not the property's market value. Assessed value therefore provides the more useful measure for showing how many residential properties fall above or below the $250,000 threshold.
Picture 4 typical homes in this city. Roughly this many already sit at or under a $250,000 assessed value:
The 54.8% figure above covers every mapped residential parcel citywide, homesteaded or not. An exact homestead-only breakdown by assessed-value tier is not available in the source data used for this page, so no exact qualifying-home count is presented.
A large share of parcels falling below the threshold does not translate dollar-for-dollar into the same share of city property-tax revenue disappearing. Revenue effects depend on taxable value, exemption eligibility, final legal language, phase-in rules, and replacement funding—not parcel count alone. Current-law protections already shield about 54.5% of the typical homesteaded property value shown in the separate homestead dataset.
Property taxes are a major General Fund revenue source, but they are not the only source supporting Ocoee's day-to-day services. Other taxes, state-shared revenue, fees, charges, transfers, and other legally available resources also contribute.
A responsible year-over-year comparison must use the same fund definition and the same adopted-budget basis in both years. The figures already verified on this page establish the FY2026 operating picture, but they do not always provide a comparable citywide FY2025 total.
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.
The adopted total is $77,222,251. Operating revenue is $73,951,899 after excluding $3,270,352 in cash balance or carryover. The 45.8% dependency calculation uses operating revenue.
Ocoee operates its own Fire Department. The FY2026 General Fund budget shows $14,769,290 for fire, with additional support from the Fire Services Assessment.
Yes. The listed department amounts total $77,222,246, a $5 difference from the exact total caused by source-level display precision.
The tier file covers a slightly broader residential parcel population. The FLC analysis is specifically limited to homestead parcels.
No. It is the current ad valorem General Fund revenue line. A future impact depends on the final policy design and any replacement funding.
