Part 15 in a series taking a close look at the City of Palm Coast’s adopted Fiscal Year 2026 budget
A city budget isn’t always neatly divided by department. Some dollars simply don’t “belong” to a single office — things like fund-to-fund transfers, reserves held back for emergencies, and odds-and-ends expenses that don’t sit cleanly under any one department. In Palm Coast, those items get parked in a bucket labeled “Non-Departmental.”
The full budget with line-by-line expenditures for each department can be found here.
For Fiscal Year 2026, the city’s General Fund Non-Departmental budget totals $1,827,644, based on the budget documents posted on the city’s website. That’s down $1,359,742 from the $3,187,386 adopted for FY2025. Go back one more year and the drop looks even steeper: actual FY2024 spending in this category came in at $5,987,257. Put differently, over two years this catch-all has contracted by about two-thirds.
The Numbers
This portion of the budget is paid out of the General Fund, the city’s primary pot for day-to-day services, and it’s laid out across four line items.
Operating Expenditures are where the sharpest swing shows up. The FY2026 adopted figure is $66,500, which is $1,542,695 lower than the $1,609,195 adopted for FY2025. For context, actual operating spending in FY2024 was $1,482,250. That steep reduction is the largest single change on the page, and it’s the main driver behind the lower overall total.
Transfers to Other Funds, meaning dollars moved out of the General Fund to help support other city accounts, go the other direction. They rise to $1,148,644 in FY2026, up $83,453 from the $1,065,191 adopted for FY2025. Transfers were far higher in FY2024, when actuals reached $4,505,007.
Capital Outlay is modest but no longer zero. It’s set at $12,500 for FY2026, an increase of $12,500 from FY2025. (There was also no capital spending recorded in this category in FY2024.)
Contingency, the reserve for unplanned costs, is budgeted at $600,000 for FY2026. That’s $87,000 more than the $513,000 set aside in FY2025. FY2024 shows no contingency recorded.
| Actual FY2024 | Adopted FY2025 | Adopted FY2026 | Change FY25–FY26 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Expenditures | $1,482,250 | $1,609,195 | $66,500 | ($1,542,695) |
| Transfers to Other Funds | $4,505,007 | $1,065,191 | $1,148,644 | $83,453 |
| Capital Outlay | — | $0 | $12,500 | $12,500 |
| Contingency | — | $513,000 | $600,000 | $87,000 |
| Total | $5,987,257 | $3,187,386 | $1,827,644 | ($1,359,742) |
Taken together: actual spending was $5,987,257 in FY2024, the adopted budget was $3,187,386 in FY2025, and the adopted budget is $1,827,644 for FY2026, a net decrease of $1,359,742.
Since “Non-Departmental” isn’t a staffed office, there are no positions or personnel costs assigned to this category.
Tax Increment History
The budget also includes a chart showing Palm Coast’s “tax increment” history from 2006 through 2024, broken out between county and city shares. Tax increment revenue comes from a community redevelopment area — as property values climb above a set baseline, the growth generates additional revenue. Over the period shown, the chart indicates a steady rise, from a combined total around $150,000 in 2006 to close to $3 million by 2024. In recent years, the county’s share remains the larger piece, while the city’s portion exceeds $1 million.
Disclaimer: The information in this article is drawn from public records, specifically the budget documents published on the City of Palm Coast’s website. Any deeper budget detail would need to be requested through a FOIA (public records) request.
Another budget series for Palm Coast will be published when the budget hearings have been completed, outlining the budget for the fiscal year 2026-2027.
The post Palm Coast’s Budget Catch-All: Non-Departmental General Fund Spending Slides to $1.8 Million first appeared on Flagler County Buzz.
