Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed two bills Wednesday related to the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot which, if approved, would dramatically expand Florida’s homestead property tax exemption.
The governor said the amendment would address the affordability problem that Floridians say is their top concern, but critics allege its passage would significantly reduce local government revenues, leaving cities and counties with limited options to pay for services citizens rely on.
One measure (SB 4-F) DeSantis signed that goes into law immediately allows the ballot summary for the proposed amendment to exceed the previously established limit of 75 words. It also changes the formula for how local governments can set millage rates, making it “harder for local governments to raise property tax burdens without greater accountability,” he said.
Another bill (HB 1329) championed by Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia will require local governments to be more transparent about their spending by posting information about their budgets on a website. Its provisions include publishing a quarterly report on the salaries of all employees and holding a “budget reduction exercise” workshop to identify strategies to potentially reduce spending by 10% from existing annual budgets. That measure will go into law on Jan. 1, 2027.
DeSantis and Ingoglia spoke during a bill signing ceremony at the State College of Florida’s Manatee-Sarasota campus in Bradenton. They used the opportunity to make the case for Floridians to approve the ballot measure, which would increase the state’s homestead exemption to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, reduce the assessed growth cap on non-homesteaded properties, and create a path for full elimination for non-school property taxes on homestead properties.
“Do you care about affordability or not?” DeSantis asked in a seeming rebuke to Democrats who contend that the state did little to address the issue during the regular legislative session held earlier this year. “If you care about it, then what better tool in the toolbox do we have than to do this for our homesteaded property owners? I mean, that’s the best thing we can do. It obviously overwhelmingly benefits middle-class people.”
The governor touts his original proposal
DeSantis sent his original proposal to the Legislature just five days before it was scheduled to meet in a special session to take it up. The final product omits DeSantis’ proposal to include a trust fund from which the state would provide grants to local governments that lack funding in certain essential services. The governor said that with the state’s existing “massive surplus,” it was something it could afford to do.
“Why not take some of that, establish a fund, and then give local governments who really need money for services grants?” he said.
Both chambers of the Legislature rejected that provision. Former St. Petersburg Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes contended that such a trust fund would transform how local government works, saying it would become “government by permission slip” and that “your city council may still hold meetings, but the real budget power moves to the Capitol.”
The Legislature also carved out from his plan eliminating property taxes for school district levies
“The House was not going to pass the homestead elimination proposal on the ballot,” DeSantis said on Wednesday. “I think it would have passed. I think it would have been huge. Biggest victory for taxpayers in the history of this state, probably since they banned the income tax in the state Constitution.”
The Legislature also rejected a provision to provide DeSantis with $5.5 million in taxpayer money to send property appraiser mailers promoting the amendment. His request came a year after lawmakers passed a law aimed at the governor himself prohibiting use of public funds to advocate for or against any issue subject to a proposed constitutional amendment.
Litigation
The proposed constitutional amendment has already generated one lawsuit, which claims the ballot language is “unconstitutionally biased, misleading and inaccurate.” If a court agrees, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier would be required to redraft the ballot language before it goes on the November ballot.
The amendment includes a provision that any homeowner who establishes Florida residency after Jan. 1, 2027, would be required to wait five years before receiving the expanded homestead exemption.
A similar five-year waiting period regarding a proposed amendment to raise the homestead exemption was struck down by the Florida Supreme Court in the 1980s, citing U.S. Supreme Court rulings that states can’t discriminate against residents by deciding who receives benefits and when.
–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
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