Accountability
A million-dollar millage cut, a shouting match over “mean girl” politics, and a fight over who gets a raise—inside the first budget hearing for Fiscal Year 2026/2027.
The Escambia County Commission’s first public hearing on its $890,095,709 tentative budget for Fiscal Year 2026/2027 was supposed to run through seven agenda items and adjourn. Instead, it took the board nearly an hour of open floor-fighting—including a heated exchange between Commissioner Mike Kohler and Clerk Pam Childers over her office’s budget—before commissioners cobbled together the four votes needed to leave with an adopted millage rate.
By the end of the night, the board settled on a $1 million millage rate reduction, dropping the countywide rate to 6.571 mills, paired with roughly $1 million earmarked for additional raises to lower-paid, non-union county employees. Chair Ashlee Hofberger cast the lone dissenting vote on the millage cut itself.
The Meeting Couldn’t Even Agree on How to Start
Before the board got anywhere near substance, it stalled on procedure:
- Commissioner Steven Barry tried to push straight to a motion adopting the millage rates as advertised;
- Chair Ashlee Hofberger and Commissioner Lumon May objected that the agenda called for board discussion first.
- Barry then asked, in effect, whether the 5:01 p.m. hearing covered all seven sub-items as a single block or required separate motions along the way
- Hofberger ruled the board would work through it item by item as written.
That same improvisational quality carried through the millage debate. Commissioner Steve Stroberger made the board’s first formal motion to cut the rate to 6.571 mills, with Barry seconding—but once it was clear Lumon May would not supply a fourth vote, Barry withdrew his own second rather than let the motion fail outright, keeping it alive procedurally for a second attempt later in the meeting.
The tone didn’t help. After Kohler raised the county’s spending on fireworks shows and Mardi Gras funding while pressing colleagues to name specific cuts, Stroberger snapped:
“I just think this mean girl shit that you’re doing, Mike, it’s not working well with me.”
Assistant County Attorney Will Nelson, present to advise the board, cautioned members at one point that deviating too far from the budget hearing’s structured process “may create some problems,” and noted that pushing unresolved items to the second hearing on September 24 “puts enormous strain on staff and management.”
May’s Pitch: Cut the Rate, But Take Care of “the Least of Them”
Lumon May held the hardest line in the room against any millage reduction all night, arguing the county hasn’t raised the rate since 2006 and that locking in a lower one now is reckless given the uncertain fate of the statewide Amendment 3 property tax measure on November’s ballot. He repeatedly offered to support spending cuts—even naming the Clerk’s budget as fair game—but not a rate cut, until the conversation shifted to pay raises for the county’s lowest earners.
May’s condition for ultimately supporting the $1 million cut was tying it to a raise for non-union, board employees making under $50,000—an additional 4% on top of an already-budgeted 2%, for 6% total. He framed it in explicitly economic terms:
“Anybody in this county that’s making less than $50,000… they can’t afford a house. Let’s just give an increase to these citizens who are around here cleaning our building, cutting our grass, driving our trucks, and they’re going home having to work two or three jobs and they’re hungry.”
He drew a direct line between six-figure earners and the frontline workers he said aren’t getting the same advocacy: “Those people that are making $32,000, $28,000 in our district. They can’t eat.”
- Hofberger pushed back procedurally, noting the board can budget for union employee raises but cannot unilaterally grant them without collective bargaining—a point May said he understood and supported working through. Finance Director Stephan Hall pegged the total cost of the general-fund raise increase at roughly $1 million.
Clerk Pam Childers vs. Commissioner Mike Kohler
During a budget hearing already headed sideways, Childers accused Kohler on the record of orchestrating the nonprofit lawsuit against her office—then floated a conversation with the state’s next governor.
The Motions
With an earlier millage motion dead on the floor, Kohler moved to cut Childers’ budget by $1 million, pointing to what he described as a pattern of the Clerk’s office running over budget. It drew a preliminary 3-2 show of hands in favor. He followed with a second motion to eliminate $100,000 from what he called the Clerk’s “legal slush fund,” seconded by Commissioner Lumon May, which also drew support on a voice count—4-1 with Stroberger joining them.
- Assistant County Attorney Will Nelson, asked whether the board could legally take up the cuts mid-meeting, told commissioners they had “great flexibility to go through the budget and make these types of decisions.”
Childers Responds
Childers asked for the floor and didn’t hold back:
“I hear your animosity, Commissioner Kohler. It is apparent you are the one that contacted the two not-for-profits. You are the one that lobbied them to file a lawsuit. You are the one who told them to go to Alex Andrade as their counsel—and maybe we need to look towards personal liability of commissioners because your behavior is abhorrent.”
She defended keeping two attorneys—one paid by the commission, which she said handles the routine volume of litigation tied to tax deed sales, and a second, personal outside attorney not funded by the county.
- Childers closed with a pointed reference to Florida’s governor’s race, saying that once a new governor takes office, she’ll have a conversation with “Donalds if he is elected or with Jolly.”
Worth noting for the record: neither of Kohler’s Clerk-targeted motions appears to have been formally reconciled into the final budget resolution language once the board landed on its broader compromise later in the meeting—worth confirming against the official minutes before treating them as final action.
Where the Night Landed
- Millage rate: Countywide rate cut to 6.571 mills (Library MSTU held at 0.359, Sheriff’s Law Enforcement MSTU at 0.685): passed 4-1, with Hofberger opposed.
- Reserves directive: The board voted, at May’s insistence, to direct staff to find the resulting $1 million shortfall through cost savings rather than reserves as the “first option”: passed 5-0.
- Tentative budget resolution: $890,095,709 for FY 2026/2027: passed 5-0.
- Second public hearing: Set for September 24, 2026, at 5:01 p.m., Board Chambers, Ernie Lee Magaha Government Building.
- Non-ad valorem special assessment roll (street lights and related districts) for FY 2026/2027: adopted with no public speakers.
Where Each Commissioner Stood
- Chair Ashlee Hofberger: The lone no vote on the final millage cut. Pushed for deeper cuts than the board ultimately delivered, repeatedly pressing staff on what a full rollback rate would look like, and corrected colleagues on the legal limits of granting union employees raises outside collective bargaining.
- Lumon May: Held out against any millage reduction for most of the night, tying his eventual willingness to compromise to securing raises for the lowest-paid county employees and a directive to find the shortfall without touching reserves—both of which the board delivered, and both of which he voted for. Also the most vocal critic of Kohler’s approach toward Childers.
- Steve Stroberger: The board’s most consistent advocate for a millage cut all night, and the one who made the motion that ultimately passed. Clashed directly with Kohler over what he called “garbage” attacks.
- Steven Barry: Functioned as the board’s chief vote-counter and dealmaker, repeatedly warning colleagues the board had to leave with an adopted rate or risk defaulting to the rollback rate, and brokered the final raise compromise with Hall.
- Mike Kohler: The most combative presence in the room, pushing colleagues to name specific cuts, targeting the Clerk’s budget and legal fund directly, and sparring with both Stroberger and, indirectly, Childers—before ultimately agreeing to support the $1 million millage cut.
What’s next: The second and final budget public hearing is set for September 24, 2026, at 5:01 p.m. in the Board Chambers. Staff will report back on whether the $1 million millage shortfall can be absorbed without dipping into reserves—the condition May attached to his support.