What can you do with a penny in Seminole County? Add trails, improve roads, alleviate flooding and upgrade schools and classroom equipment.

Those are some of the projects leaders use to make their case for voters to renew the county’s extra penny atop the state’s 6 cent sales tax for another decade. The money generated — $1.8 billion countywide since 1991 — can fund constructing and maintaining infrastructure and capital expenditures.

“It’s probably one of the fairest ways to create revenue to help pay for these things,” Commission Chair Jay Zembower said in support. “None of us like taxes — myself included — but it really comes to a quality of life issue for Seminole County residents.”

If approved Nov. 5 in a countywide charter referendum, that penny will keep raising about $100 million annually. Half would go toward county projects, one-quarter for city initiatives and one-quarter for school construction and improvements.

Two other referendums on the ballot ask voters to toughen protections for rural and natural lands, by requiring a supermajority — four votes of the five-member county commission — to withdraw property from or otherwise modify those areas. The rural area covers nearly a third of Seminole County and there are about 7,300 acres of natural lands.

However, it’s the question of the extra penny — the One Cent Infrastructure Sales Tax — that is drawing the most interest in the county of just under half a million residents. Voters approved the decade-long levy in 1991, 2001 and 2014.

Now it’s set to expire Dec. 31 and not everyone supports extending it.

“This is a huge amount of money with little controls and oversight,” Grant Maloy, Seminole’s clerk of the circuit court and comptroller, said of the revenue generated. “Transparency and accountability are very important and this doesn’t have it.”

Maloy said the county should do a better job providing details of how the tax revenue is spent.

Zembower is proposing an annual county audit to show where every penny of tax revenue would go. Commissioners also point out that the county has a detailed list of projects on its website.

The share of money for the county and municipalities can be used only for infrastructure projects such as building or upgrading roads, sidewalks, trails and bridges. The school district can use its portion only to build schools or improve buildings — such as replacing air-conditioning units or roofs — or to buy classroom equipment such as computers, desks and furniture.

The Seminole County Republican Executive Committee recently passed a resolution urging voters not to renew the tax. Instead, it wants the county to place the issue on the 2026 general election ballot.

“High food prices, high fuel prices, high rent prices, high mortgage interest rates and other higher living expenses are causing pain to Seminole County citizens,” the resolution said. “Whereas a ballot measure to raise the sales tax rate will encourage Democrat voters to go to the polls, who will then vote against the Republican slate of candidates!”

But it was an all-Republican county commission that voted unanimously in June to place the issue on the ballot. Supporters note that the state’s Department of Revenue estimates up to 30% of the tax is paid by visitors to Seminole.

School Board member Autumn Garick said the tax is “vitally important” to schools.

“If this doesn’t pass, we really don’t have any other [funding] options,” Garick said. “Our economic driver here in Seminole County is our schools; it’s an A-rated district.

“People move here because of our schools. If our schools decline, then our economy here in Seminole County would decline. And that would mean a decrease in property tax revenues.”

Renewing the tax also will allow the district to offer students access to technology advancements in coming years so they are “21st-century citizens,” she said.

City leaders said if the referendum fails they’d face cutting services and projects or have to significantly raise property taxes to make up the shortfall.

Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek said “it’s going to be ugly” in cutting her city’s budget without the estimated $3.2 million annually from the tax.

“It’s a huge amount of money for us,” Sladek said. “We rely on this almost exclusively to pave and maintain our roads and sidewalks.”

Regarding the referendums on the county’s rural area and natural lands, conservationists and environmentalists said requiring a supermajority would protect those areas against urban sprawl. They expect pressure from developers to build on those lands as the population grows.

“The rural boundary is so important,” said Cathy Swerdlow, president of Seminole League of Women Voters, which supports passage of both referendums. “It’s not just that it’s pretty. But it’s so vital for natural resources, water resources and wildlife.”

County Commissioner Lee Constantine agreed.

“It’s going to guarantee that whoever changes the rural areas is going to have to have a very good reason, because they’re going to have to convince four out of the five commissioners,” Constantine said.