St. Pete Beach advisory committee reviews 2026 cosponsorship requests, flags sheriff and EMS costs

The St. Pete Beach Recreation Advisory Committee on May 27 reviewed applications for 2026 cosponsorship of recurring events on Corey Avenue, Eighth Avenue and in Pass-a-Grille and questioned how the city would cover sheriff, EMS and permitting costs if the committee recommends fee waivers.

Mandy, interim recreation director, told the committee she had assembled cosponsorship applications and said, “our recommendation is gonna go to commission for the final approval.” She described cosponsorships as historically resulting in permitting and public-safety fees being waived for applicants while the city absorbs those costs.

Committee members pressed staff on the size and frequency of public-safety costs. Ken, a committee member, asked, “The sheriff fee I see here is $4,752. Is that the same as last year?” Mandy replied the $4,752 figure is the same as last year and that the $4,752 was a per-event sheriff charge for the Corey Avenue craft festival (the craft festival runs four times a year). She explained permitting fees in the packet were shown as totals for recurring dates, while sheriff costs are charged per event.

Committee discussion covered options staff could recommend to the commission: waive only permitting fees while keeping sheriff/EMS charges with the permittee, waive all fees, or require the permittee to pay all fees. Mandy said the committee could approve all, some, or none of the requests and that staff would forward whatever recommendation the committee makes to the commission as part of the recreation operating budget.

Committee members also asked for higher-level budget context before committing to fee waivers. One member noted many parks and facilities need repairs after recent storms and said it would be difficult to recommend city-funded fee waivers without knowing the recreation and parks budget priorities. Mandy said parks and beaches have been moved from the recreation department to the public services department and that public-safety costs for cosponsored events would need to be included in the city’s operating budget if the committee recommends waivers.

On the scale of the packet submitted, staff said the most significant line items were off-duty sheriff staffing costs. Based on submitted applications, staff summarized roughly $15,000 in sheriff costs, about $7,000 in permit fees and about $5,000 in EMS costs across the events shown — numbers staff called estimates tied to the current submissions and subject to change during budget review.

The committee did not adopt a final list of approved cosponsorships at the meeting. Mandy said she would present the committee’s input to the city commission during the budget process and noted the commission would have final authority on fee waivers. “I’ll present it to commission when we go through our budget process, and they’ll make the final determination on what fees will be accepted,” she said.

The committee asked staff to include, for future review, attendance and program metrics for events (for example, whether a trunk-or-treat was meeting its goal of attracting children), any changes from prior years, and a clearer breakdown of which events are nonprofit-led. Several members suggested exploring contributions from hotels and other private beneficiaries of the events as part of a longer-term funding model.

The city will treat the applications as part of the usual special-event permitting process; staff recommended the committee weigh in and then forward a recommendation to the city commission as the budget is prepared.