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Flagler County tax collector highlights fee-based budget, tourist tax enforcement and short-term rental monitoring
Summary
Tax Collector Shelly Edmonson told commissioners her office is fee funded, collects transient lodging taxes, administers DMV services and uses a contracted internet-monitoring service to detect short-term rental listings for enforcement.
Flagler County Tax Collector Shelly Edmonson told the Board of County Commissioners on June 9 that the tax collector'office is a fee'based operation and that unspent fee revenue is returned to the county. She described how the office enforces transient lodging taxes and short'term rental compliance.
Edmonson said the tax collector receives a commission on property-tax collection (she referenced a 2% commission rate), but most of the office'level revenues come from DMV services, concealed-weapons permits and other state-regulated transactions. She noted the office began collecting the county'transient rental (TDT) tax in 2018 and reported it collected slightly more than $4.5 million in TDT revenues this year.
Short-term rental and TDT enforcement Edmonson described a two'pronged enforcement approach: local business-tax receipts and a paid third'party internet-monitoring vendor that scrapes listings on platforms such as Airbnb, VRBO and others. She said the vendor captures screenshots and timestamps of public listings; the tax collector's office uses that evidence to check whether operators have the required local business tax receipt and are registered to pay the county's tourist tax. Edmonson said tourist-tax filings are confidential but that the office can investigate whether a property has the required local permits.
Why this matters: short'term rentals can create local regulatory, safety and revenue issues; enforcement affects county lodging-tax revenues and municipal code compliance.
Next steps and questions Commissioners asked whether the tax collector coordinates with county code enforcement; Edmonson said enforcement includes cross'checks for local business-tax receipts and that field staff post notices at properties suspected of operating short'term rentals without required local registration.
No formal actions were taken Monday; the presentation clarified the tax collector's funding model and enforcement tools.
