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Oakland amended its interlocal agreement with Orange County last week, reducing the amount the town will pay for fire prevention and rescue services by $38,000.
This is the first amendment to the town-county agreement and was passed as part of the town’s consent agenda during the Dec. 9 commission meeting.
The services Orange County provides include fire fighting, medical emergencies, traffic accident, hazardous materials incidents and other “significant emergencies that require specialized emergency services,” according to the county.
Orange County provides fire prevention and fire rescue services to three other municipalities in addition to Oakland.
The Orange County Commissioners voted in September 2024 to raise the fire and emergency services tax rate from 2.2437 to 2.8437 mils to pay for new fire stations, add more fire fighters and upgrade equipment — the first rate hike for county fire services in 34 years, the Orlando Sentinel reported. The increase was a hit to Oakland's budget, and Mayor Shane Taylor met with county officials this past September to request that the town’s 2018 fire services agreement with the county be renegotiated.
“Mayor Taylor asked them to revisit the agreement to see if they could come up with a more fair and equitable method of calculating our fire fee,” Elise Hui, the town manager, told VoxPopuli in an email.
Taylor told VoxPopuli via text that “no dollar amount [was] discussed."
The county offered to readjust the annual rate the town is charged to base it on either the percentage increase in the county’s gross property value for the current year or the percentage increase of the town’s real taxable value for the current year — whichever is lower — according to a Sept. 26, 2025, letter sent to Taylor, included in the Dec. 9, 2025, meeting agenda packet.
For 2025-2026, the town’s real taxable value increase is estimated to be 9.78 percent while the county’s gross taxable value increase is estimated at 7.38 percent.
“Under the new agreement, the Town of Oakland would realize an additional savings of 2.4 percent, resulting in a reduced fee of approximately $38,000 after adjusting for our contractual discount,” according to a Dec. 9, 2025 memo from Hui, included in the agenda packet.
As a municipality within Orange County, Oakland already receives a 7.5 percent discount on the annual rate of fire services that is not extended to areas in unincorporated Orange County.
“What I think needs to happen is an evaluation of what we are paying versus the services being provided,” Taylor told VoxPopuli via text.
Taylor said he’s satisfied with the county’s offer — for now.
“But the discussions are far from over.”
