The Rays vote, in plain numbers
Hillsborough County commissioners hold the public hearing today, Nov. 10, on the first $353 million of the county's money for the Tampa Bay Rays' new ballpark — a $90 million appropriation from the half-cent Community Investment Tax and authorization for up to $263 million in tourist-tax bonds. The claims around this vote are running hotter than the facts. Here are the facts, from the deal documents, the county's own budget books, and the sources of the numbers being quoted.
- What today is — and isn't: the ballpark deal itself was approved Aug. 28 (5-2). Today's hearing adds the stadium to the Community Investment Tax project list, appropriates the first of four $90M CIT installments, and authorizes the tourist-tax bonds. Still ahead after today: a negotiated community benefits agreement (the team says no public money flows until it exists), court validation of the bonds, and further agreements — which the NEW board will handle.
- Where the county's money actually comes from: the county share is capped at $796M — $360M from the CIT sales tax, $303M in tourist-development-tax commitments (mostly bonded; with interest, the county CFO puts that piece at $569M), $103M from the county's main account, and $30M in federal disaster funds. About 83% is sales and tourist taxes. Tampa adds $80M; the Rays cover ~$1.37B plus all cost overruns.
- The $971 million 'shortfall,' disassembled: that is the Florida Policy Institute's estimate for EVERY taxing jurisdiction inside Hillsborough — county, cities, special districts — over two fiscal years, measured against a baseline that assumes continued growth. The county government's own budget book estimates its own impact at roughly $143M in the first year and $213M in the second. County context: taxable value grew 15.3%, 11.6%, 6.8% and 6.9% across FY23–FY26; the FY27 budget is $13.78 billion total, $4.77 billion operating.
- Who is voting: the outgoing board. Voters flipped the commission to a 4-3 Democratic majority on Nov. 3, but the new board is not sworn in until Nov. 17. Chair Ken Hagan moved this hearing to Nov. 10 saying big issues should be voted before the board changes; two of today's voters — Joshua Wostal and Donna Cameron Cepeda — leave office next week.
Start with what today is not. It is not the vote that approved a Rays ballpark in Tampa — that happened on August 28, when the commission approved the funding agreement 5-2, a day after Tampa's City Council approved its $80 million share. Today is the money mechanics: a public hearing to add the ballpark to the project list of the renewed Community Investment Tax, an appropriation of $90 million from that half-cent sales tax's reserves for fiscal 2027 (the first of four $90 million installments), and authorization for up to $263 million in bonds backed by the tourist development tax. Even after today, the deal's own conditions stand between the votes and any money moving: a community benefits agreement still has to be negotiated — the Rays' own leadership has said funding is contingent on it, 'not a penny' flows before it — the bonds need court validation, and the license, use and construction-trust agreements still need approval. Those remaining pieces belong to the next board.
The money map, because it is the first thing the shouting gets wrong. The county's contribution is capped at $796 million, and it is not, in the main, property-tax money: $360 million from the Community Investment Tax (a sales tax), $303 million in tourist-development-tax commitments (a hotel tax, mostly bonded — and the county's chief financial administrator has noted the tourism piece grows to $569 million once bond interest is counted, a figure not inside the $796 million cap), $103 million from the county's main account — the one largely supported by property taxes, which pays for the sheriff, fire rescue and basics — and $30 million in federal disaster-recovery funds. Commissioner Chris Boles has put the sales-and-tourist share at about 83%. The Rays cover roughly $1.37 billion of the ~$2.36 billion project plus every dollar of cost overruns; Major League Baseball provides a $150 million loan. So when a commissioner warns on television about 'hundreds of millions in property tax dollars' for the stadium, the deal's own structure says the property-tax-adjacent slice is the $103 million — real money, and a fair argument — inside a package that is five-sixths sales and hotel taxes. And when stadium supporters wave the property tax away entirely, that same $103 million, plus the opportunity cost of $360 million of a sales tax that also paves roads and builds fire stations, is what their version leaves out.
Now the number doing the most work this week: $971.1 million, the Florida Policy Institute's estimate of Amendment 3's cost 'to Hillsborough County' over its first two years. The figure is real, and its label is loose. FPI's own breakdown counts every taxing jurisdiction within the county's borders — county government (-$698.8M over two years on its county-operating lines), the cities (-$132.2M), and the special districts, libraries and children's services among them — and measures each against a baseline that assumes property values keep growing. The county government's own budget book, published in July, estimates the impact on the county's own funds at roughly $143 million in the first year and $213 million in the second — about $356 million across the two years, or a little over a third of the headline figure. Both estimates share the same property the word 'shortfall' hides: they are reductions from a projected future, not deductions from money the county collects today. Hillsborough's taxable value grew 15.3% in FY23, 11.6% in FY24, 6.8% in FY25 and 6.9% in FY26, reaching about $186.5 billion; the county's adopted FY27 budget is $13.78 billion in total and $4.77 billion in operations, with a countywide property-tax levy of just over $1 billion. Amendment 3, which voters passed Nov. 3 with 62%, shrinks the growth of that base — sharply, and permanently, unless voters reverse it. It does not rewind it to 2019.
The sales tax has its own contested history, and both versions of it are half the record. Voters created the Community Investment Tax in 1996 — it helped build Raymond James Stadium — and renewed it in a 2024 referendum for 15 years, for transportation, public safety, schools, utilities and public facilities. County documents around the renewal described stadium spending at the existing venues as capital maintenance and repairs, not new construction; Commissioner Joshua Wostal says commissioners promised the tax would not fund new stadiums. The county's outside bond counsel concluded in an April 2026 memo that the ballot language voters approved contains no explicit prohibition on financing a new stadium, and the law's mechanism for exactly this situation is the one being used today: a public hearing, then an amendment of the project list. Whether that honors the voters' intent is a legitimate argument — it is, in fact, the argument today's hearing is for. What is not available, on the documents, is the claim that the voters either plainly approved this stadium or plainly forbade it. They approved categories. Today decides the list.
And one more fact that belongs in every version of this story: the board voting today is not the board Hillsborough voters chose a week ago. On Nov. 3, voters flipped the commission from a 5-2 Republican majority to a 4-3 Democratic one. The new commissioners are sworn in on Nov. 17. Today's hearing sits where it sits because Chair Ken Hagan proposed voting the big items before the board changes — a motion that passed 5-2, with Wostal and Donna Cameron Cepeda against; both of them leave office next week, and both vote today. The commissioners who will live longest with this deal — who must negotiate its community benefits agreement, validate its bonds and answer for its construction — take their seats in seven days, and this was not theirs to vote on. Commissioner Boles, who supports the deal, has set his own public test for it: if Amendment 3 changes the financial projection 'in a meaningful way, we should take another look' — and, he has said, the amendment's passage alone is not that change. Commissioner Harry Cohen argues the other side of the same fact: losing homestead revenue makes growing the commercial tax base — which a ballpark district is supposed to do — more important, not less. Those are the two honest arguments, from the deal's own supporters. Everything louder than them is decoration. The hearing is today; this page will update with the votes when they are reported.