Sarasota parking is supposed to pay for itself. It hasn’t for over a decade

When Sarasota rescinded its extended parking hours at a fiery meeting last week, Vice Mayor Kathy Kelley Ohlrich reiterated her desire that the city’s parking division be able to sustain itself.

As an enterprise fund, the parking division is supposed to cover its own bills and payroll with fees and fares rather than rely on the city’s general fund. This point has been emphasized again and again at city commission meetings.

“I don’t think a grandma, who lives 10 miles away, right on the city border, who doesn’t even have a car, should be taxed for parking,” Ohlrich said.

The argument in favor of maintaining the enterprise fund has threaded along such grounds: Those who don’t use the city’s thousands of public parking spaces should not have to pay for those who do.

However, a Suncoast Searchlight review of more than a decade of city budgets shows that the parking division has for years relied on Sarasota’s general fund to stay afloat, clashing with claims by officials that recent measures to increase parking revenue are meant to preserve the division’s status as an enterprise fund.

In total, the parking division now owes Sarasota’s general fund over $1.6 million. That figure is higher than the parking management fund’s entire balance going into the 2026-27 fiscal year.

Since 2013, the parking division has received at least $3.9 million from the city’s general fund through subsidies and loans. Most recently, the city commission approved a $400,000 loan in September 2025.

City Communications General Manager Jan Thornburg said on Tuesday that no representatives of the parking division would be available to comment or provide clarifying information to Suncoast Searchlight in time for Friday publication.

On Thursday, Suncoast Searchlight followed up with a detailed summary of its findings and again invited officials from the city’s parking division and financial administration to comment or provide clarification. A city spokesperson acknowledged the email but did not provide additional comment on the matter.

Between 2013 and 2018, the city gave the parking division nearly $2.4 million in subsidies. Then, from 2018 through 2021, the general fund loaned the division about $1.1 million.

Loans of $620,000 were given over the course of 2020 and 2021 for “deficit in parking revenues” as the COVID-19 pandemic sharply curtailed travel and tourism. A similar reason was cited for a $400,000 loan last year, this time because the division could not collect some revenue after the historic 2024 storm season.

Ohlrich told Suncoast Searchlight that although the parking division has needed help over the years to stay afloat, she believes the city and its residents can find a solution to make it self-sustainable.

“Those figures tell me that we have not done a deep dive into possible solutions to make the parking fund an enterprise fund per the definition of enterprise fund, and that’s what we are doing now,” Ohlrich said.

The commission is holding a public open house to discuss parking on Aug. 24 at City Hall. The city will then hold a workshop on the topic a week later, on Aug. 31.

Sarasota is undergoing a metamorphosis from a smaller beach community to mid-major Florida city, Ohlrich said, which will necessitate changes to how city services operate and find revenue.

A flurry of attention has focused on Sarasota’s parking policy after commissioners voted in May to increase paid parking hours citywide, including earlier and later enforcement Monday through Saturday and paid parking on Sunday afternoons, when parking had previously been free.

Those new hours began in late June and lasted just over a month, amid persistent backlash from residents and business owners downtown and on St. Armands, who said they were dramatically losing customers to places with free parking like University Town Center.

At a meeting in July, Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch, who is running for reelection, brought up constituent concerns about the new parking hours and said the division’s funding may need to be reexamined.

“I would just love to see a comprehensive look at this department, to figure out how it can function as an enterprise fund,” Ahearn-Koch said. “Because it’s called an enterprise fund, and it doesn’t function as an enterprise fund the entire time I’ve been on the commission.”

When speaking to Suncoast Searchlight, Ahearn-Koch was hesitant to assign blame, but she said she could not recall parking division officials clarifying why they needed the additional revenue, what specific expenses it would cover, or how the money would be used.

“The parking division was always presented throughout the year as a whole fund that needed to be subsidized by the general fund,” Ahearn-Koch said. “Which part of it needed to be subsidized was not completely clear to me.”

Former City Manager Marlon Brown said it was not unusual for public officials to move money around when needed, especially through crises such as the pandemic and hurricanes to cover infrastructure needs. Brown, who spent more than a decade in city leadership before joining the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce as its director of government affairs, said the parking division was no exception.

“It’s not the best way to do budgets,” he said, “but it’s how cities have always gotten over deficits in another enterprise.”

With the parking division repeatedly relying on money from the city’s general fund, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of being a self-sustaining enterprise fund?

“Absolutely,” Brown said.

Christian Casale covers government and politics for the Suncoast Searchlight. Email him at christian@suncoastsearchlight.org.