Hillsborough County To Vote Friday on Rays "Bad Deal" Stadium Funding

Hillsborough County has scheduled a "special" BOCC meeting on Friday, 8/28/26 at 9am to vote on the latest public funding agreement for a new Rays Stadium. The County finally released their 184 page agenda that includes the 180 page agreement today. 

Apparently, the county commissioners expect their constituents and the taxpayers to read and fully digest the monstrosity of an agreement in less than 48 hours before they vote. Or....they expect their constituents and the taxpayers will not have the time to read and digest how at least a Billion dollars (direct funding plus debt) of their tax dollars will be used to enrich Billionaire baseball owners.

Looks like the "Pass the funding agreement first to then see what's actually in it" attitude.

The public can weigh in during public comment either in person or virtually by registering here or signing up in person before 9am on Friday.

Public Funding:

• City of Tampa 

•  $80M "payable from City legally available non ad valorem revenues in four (4) annual installments" beginning January 1, 2027. (Supposedly Tampa claimed they would not use CIT funds so where is available non ad valorem coming from - inquiring minds want to know.)

• Hillsborough County will contribute $796M of direct funding (that excludes debt payments)

• Community Investment Tax Renewal (CIT)
• County will hand the Rays upfront $360M of CIT revenues in 4 installments of $90M
• County commissioners specifically told voters and taxpayers in 2024 that the CIT Renewal would NOT be used for ANY new Stadium. They lied.

• Tourist Development Tax  
• County will bond out (aka Debt) $263M of TDT for 35 years (total interest payments over 35 years will cost hundreds of millions of dollars)
• County will raid the TDT reserves of $40M
• BOCC Chair Ken Hagan is Chair of the Tourist Development Council who oversees the spending of the TDT (how convenient)
• Tampa Mayor Jane Castor is on the Board of the Tourist Development Council (how convenient
• Section 3.10 of the Funding Agreement includes the County "understands" the Rays will be requesting additional TDT revenue in the future.
• "Section 3.10 Additional TDT Contribution Requests. The County understands that it is StadCo intent to request from the County additional contributions of the one percent high tourism impact tourist development tax authorized by section 125.0104(3)(m), Florida Statutes. The County will consider, subject to all due and proper requirements of Applicable Law, such requests in a manner consistent with its consideration of such requests from other similarly situated professional sports teams located in Hillsborough County. Any County approval will be subject to separate written agreement by and between StadCo and the County and subject to approval by the Board of County Commissioners in its sole and absolute discretion." 
• More tax dollars to the Rays will be a big black hole of never ending handouts. 

• County will hand the Rays $103M by raiding the Countywide General Fund Cash Reserves. 
• The mystery (so much for transparency) $103M the County does not specify the funding source for in the agreement but the County previously presented they would use these reserves

• The same Cash Reserves Fund that Commissioner Ken Hagan has scoldingly told the public for years could not be used to fund roads and infrastructure (primary responsibility of local government) because using the Reserve funds would negatively impact the County's bond/credit rating.
• But use those funds for a Stadium and it's A-OK...

• $30M HUD Community Development Block Grant - Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR 
• According to HUD's website, the intent of CDBG-DR grants:

• Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) grant funds are appropriated by Congress and allocated by HUD to rebuild disaster-impacted areas and provide crucial seed money to start the long-term recovery process. These flexible grants help cities, counties, Indian tribes, and States recover from Presidentially declared disasters, especially in low-income areas, subject to availability of supplemental appropriations. Since CDBG-DR assistance may fund a broad range of recovery activities, HUD can help communities and neighborhoods that otherwise might not recover due to limited resources.

• As Florida continues to recover throughout the state from numerous hurricanes, we are investigating whether the use of this grant to help fund a baseball stadium is an appropriate use of these disaster recovery funds. 

There is a clause in this funding agreement regarding if there is an "Unavailability of Public Contribution Amount" resulting from the illegality of the use of all or any portion of the Public Contribution Amount. The Rays will be notified and the City and County will propose an "Alternative Funding Arrangement" aka they will go find other revenue sources to use aka that Stadium will get built...

The Tax-Increment Financing (TIF) will encompass a new Ballpark Community Development District (CDD) which it appears the CDD will issue bonds. The incremental property tax growth will pay back the debt service first and maintain, repair and improve public infrastructure within the CDD District - which is all in the city of Tampa.

Subsidizing a new baseball stadium while the County has neglected its roads and infrastructure for years is fiscal irresponsibility and bad governance. 

This is a bad deal, especially for taxpayers in unincorporated Hillsborough. While the County hands the Rays a Billion dollars of County tax dollars, it is the city of Tampa who will benefit.  

The dishonesty, deception and lack of public transparency by Ken Hagan and County staff is appalling. Hagan, as Chair of the BOCC and Chair of the TDC, empowered him to manipulate with insiders the creation of this Stadium Subsidy Scam. 

It is intentional misfeasance to be committing tax revenues for a new stadium without knowing whether Amendment 3 is passed or not. 

At the very least, this contentious issue should be on the ballot and let voters decide not 7 county commissioners.

Email all the commissioners here and tell them to VOTE NO!