Getting the Word Out: Palm Coast’s $742,022 Communications Budget, Now With Fewer Hands on Deck

Part 4 in a series looking at the City of Palm Coast’s adopted Fiscal Year 2026 budget

Palm Coast plans to put $742,022 into its Communications & Marketing department in Fiscal Year 2026, based on budget documents posted to the city’s website. That’s $3,137 more than the $738,885 adopted for FY2025 — basically a flat line, even though the department is dropping half a position while still carrying a busy mix of city events, emergency messaging, and day-to-day public outreach.

The full budget with line-by-line expenditures for each department can be found here.

What the Department Does

Think of Communications & Marketing as the city’s narrator and loudspeaker. The team’s job is to connect residents, businesses, and visitors with what the city is doing and what services are available. It handles the planning and promotion side of city events and puts out public-facing updates, from the annual fireworks celebration all the way to hurricane prep notices.

Those updates go out through the city website and through email blasts for people who subscribe using Palm Coast Connect, the city’s online portal.

The Numbers

All of the department’s funding comes out of the General Fund, the city’s primary pot for routine services. The budget falls into two main buckets.

Personnel Services, which covers salaries and benefits, is budgeted at $589,905 for FY2026. That’s down $20,569 from the $610,474 adopted for FY2025. For context, actual personnel spending in FY2024 came in at $478,148.

Operating Expenditures — the costs tied to running the operation: supplies, contracted services, outreach efforts, and related work — rise to $152,117 in FY2026. That’s $23,706 above the $128,411 adopted for FY2025. Actual operating costs in FY2024 were $115,392.

One other line shows up only in the FY2024 actuals: $2,511 listed as Transfers to Other Funds. There were no transfers budgeted in FY2025 or FY2026.

Add it all up and the department spent $596,051 in FY2024, was budgeted at $738,885 in FY2025, and is budgeted at $742,022 in FY2026, a year-over-year increase of $3,137.

A Shrinking Team

Staffing slips from 5.50 full-time equivalent positions in FY2024 and FY2025 to 5.00 in FY2026, a drop of 0.50. The cut comes from the department’s only part-time/temporary slot.

The five remaining full-time roles listed in the city’s 2026 pay plan are:

Over the past year, staffing issues weren’t just a line item. The department says its Communications Specialist position became vacant in June and stayed unfilled, and when the Parks & Recreation Marketing Coordinator role was lost, the workload didn’t disappear — it landed on this team. The department’s summary says staff took on the extra responsibilities and still met the city’s communication needs.

What Residents Got for the Money

The FY2025 progress report included in the budget lays out the department’s output:

Two performance targets are tracked as well. The first is a goal to boost website visits by 20 percent each year. The city reports it reached 19.7 percent, just under the mark, tying the jump to efforts that steer residents to the website for self-service options, updates, project information, and engagement. The logic is simple: the more comfortable people are using the site, the fewer calls end up landing with Customer Service.

The second target is social media growth, also set at 20 percent annually. The department reports 13.9 percent. Facebook stayed the busiest platform, adding 3,535 followers during the year, while total follower growth across all platforms was 5,678.

A big portion of the year’s workload involved crisis messaging during Hurricane Milton: pre-storm warnings, sandbag details, preparedness campaigns that reached thousands, plus routine emergency notices like road closures, traffic signal outages, and water conservation alerts.

The year also included a long list of projects and event support: rolling out the Special Events Portal to make event requests easier; promoting the city’s 25th Anniversary Celebration at Central Park; covering Food Truck Tuesday’s finale, Pink on Parade 5K, and Hall of Terror 2024; communicating around the Traffic Calming Pilot Program, Palm Coast Connect improvements, and the Utility Strategic Plan webpage; supporting State of the City 2025; updates on the Whiteview Parkway Safety Project, the David Sullivan City Council appointment, and the GIS Open Data Hub launch; AV upgrades in the Jon Netts Community Wing for hybrid meetings and live streams; promotion for Keep Palm Coast Clean 2025, Tunnel to Towers 5K, and the MedNexus Innovation Challenge; marking Arbor Day’s 20th Anniversary, Touch-a-Truck, the Spring Arts Festival, and the Citizens Academy Spring graduation; hosting the Connecting to Palm Coast Expo and the statewide CLOAF conference; producing the Let’s Talk Palm Coast town hall series with City Council members and messaging for the City-Wide Risk Assessment launch; the Jon Netts Community Wing dedication; coverage and outreach for United Flagler 4th, the Father’s Day Lacrosse Tournament, water plant tours, and stormwater education; plus joint public safety training exercises between Palm Coast Fire and the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office. The department also noted that the Imagine 2050 Comprehensive Plan earned the Regional Award for Excellence in Planning and Growth Management.

Up Next: Human Resources

The budget document also tees up the Human Resources department, which supports a city workforce of more than 590 employees. HR oversees hiring and workforce planning, pay and classification, benefits, workers’ comp, labor relations, policy work, succession planning, training, the city’s Human Resources Information System, plus city-wide safety and risk management. The next part of this series will focus on HR’s budget.

Disclaimer: Everything above comes from public records, pulled from budget documents posted on the City of Palm Coast website. More detailed budget information would need to be requested through a FOIA (public records) request.

The post Getting the Word Out: Palm Coast’s $742,022 Communications Budget, Now With Fewer Hands on Deck first appeared on Flagler County Buzz.