We’ve heard plenty from Gov. Ron DeSantis about his desire to eliminate homestead property taxes. Those taxes fund many local government services.
How municipalities would replace that money is in question, as Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey told the Leon legislative delegation last week.
“Our property taxes, we generate about $75 million believe it or not. That’s it. $75 million out of a $1.2 billion budget,” Dailey said. “We do not even generate enough property taxes to cover the budget of the police department.”
The Florida House has put forth eight options to consider during the legislative session toward eliminating or reducing property taxes. The goal is to get one proposal on the ballot next year so voters can decide whether to change the property tax system through a constitutional amendment.
The ideas include making sure law enforcement is protected from cuts.
“How will that impact us? It will wipe out Parks and Recreation, which has a smaller budget than the police department budget,” Dailey said. “It will wipe out Neighborhood Affairs. So as we move forward…any way that we can serve as a resource to the legislature, we’ll be more than happy to.”
On today’s Speaking Of, we hear more comments from the local delegation meeting. We also hear from Cragin Mosteller, Deputy Executive Director of the Florida Association of Counties. She says communities rely on taxes for public safety, parks, safe drinking water, and more.
“There’s just a lot unknown. And the voters, the citizens, deserve to know the consequences and then make informed decisions,” Mosteller says. “Right now, based off of what’s on the table, they can’t do that.”
“The math doesn’t work,” Mosteller says. “When anybody is going to make a decision this big and tackle an issue that’s this significant in how it affects every Floridian’s everyday life, all the solutions need to be worked out. And they just aren’t.”
On the question of whether municipalities are considering alternative revenue sources in lieu of property taxes, Mosteller says it’s complicated in a state that is known for low taxes.
“When you start to really examine where you’re going to get more money (if property taxes are eliminated), that means somebody else is going to have to pay. That becomes then a tax shift,” Mosteller says. “Homestead property owners become the winners, but what about our small businesses? Are they going to have to foot the bill?”
For anyone interested in diving into the numbers – and seeing how Florida’s 67 counties differ -- the association offers an interactive map of county property taxes.
Mosteller says property tax reform may be needed in Florida, but it “deserves a great deal of deliberation and debate.”
"There’s a lot of inequities in the current system. There’s a lot of advantages that certain people get that other people don’t get,” Mosteller says. “So we would love to see some of that evened out and to see a system that establishes more equality for all of Florida’s citizens. But it’s complicated.”
Click LISTEN above to hear the full segment of Speaking Of.
