Escambia County Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger was lost for much of the budget hearing on Tuesday. Reviewing the video, the commission chair appeared to want to roll back the millage fully to the FY 2026 level (6.3807 mills). However, she never made a motion or a substitute motion to do it.
Note: The Rollback Rate is the millage rate that would raise the exact same amount of property tax revenue as the prior year, excluding new construction. Adopting rates higher than the rollback level means higher overall collections due to rising property values.
As commission chair, Hofberger has control over the meeting. In the first 20 minutes, she said:
“I think the best way to get to the rollback rate is to have an actual discussion about what needs to be cut, not just putting less money in reserves. But that’s not how I would run my household budget. That’s not how I run my business. When we need to make cuts, we look at how we can be more efficient. We don’t look at saving less.”
However, she never called for a discussion on budget cuts. The commissioners focused on the millage rate instead.
Hofberger told the PNJ that she has $1.644 million in budget cuts that she wants:
- $300,000 — grants and aid the county sets aside
- $211,000 — aid to private organizations
- $83,000 — after-school and summer programs
- $450,000 — the county’s summer work program (eliminate entirely)
- $600,000 — reduction to Escambia’s funding of the Pensacola-Escambia Development Commission (PEDC), which she argued is redundant with a new $110,000/year Economic Development and Planning Manager position (plus a $250/month car allowance) the county created.
However, the District 4 commissioner never made a motion to make these cuts. The closest Hofberger came was saying:
“If we could cut (the budget) by $1.2 million and that other $200,000 come from discretionary funds being eliminated, I would support this budget.”
That was $1.4 million, not $1.644 million, and she never broke it into line items. The budget resolution passed 5-0.
On the raise for lower-paid workers: The PNJ article says she voted against giving county employees making less than $50,000 an additional 4% raise, but the item passed 5-0, with her vote in favor.
On the millage: Hofberger was the lone vote against cutting the millage from 6.6 mills to 6.571 mills.
If the board voted to roll back the tax rate to the FY 2026 level, Commissioner Mike Kohler called for his fellow commissioners to put “skin in the game” and give specific cuts in their districts.
“No one’s actually put a proposal up that says what you want to take out of District 1 or District 4 or District 2,” said Kohler. “Say a million dollars, that’s about 15 FTEs. You want less FTEs in your district for code? You want to give up a park? You want to cut your library services? What do you want to put on the table? Anything? Or are we just talking fuzzy talk?”
He added:
“I’m not just going to go to Wes or to Stefan or director and say, ‘Go cut it.’ No, I’m going to put my skin in the game and say which park, which library, which personnel, which road isn’t going to get resurfaced.”
As the discussion of the tax rate continued, Kohler challenged the board to be specific about their cuts:
“When you come to the table and you want to be tough on the budget. The same thing I learned in the Navy, you come with a solution what you’re going to cut. You don’t throw it out and say, ‘Hey, I want to keep all of my stuff, but you guys go do all the hard work.’ These are real people, man.”
Hofberger had no response.
