JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Most Floridians support eliminating property taxes on their homes as long as public safety and school funding are protected.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the conclusion of a new UNF poll released Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
UNF Associate Political Science Professor Sean Freeder conducted the poll.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n He argued it\u2019s not a bad starting point, but there\u2019s a big caveat in the result, given ballot proposals need 60 percent to pass.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can imagine a very successful campaign could bump it over that 60 percent threshold, but there\u2019s campaigns that are going to go in the other direction too,\u201d said Freeder.<\/p>\n The poll question was phrased to mirror the proposal recently passed by the Florida House<\/a>.<\/p>\n This week, members of the Jacksonville City Council Finance Committee were told by council auditors that the plan would blow a $375 million hole in the city budget.<\/p>\n Given public safety funding couldn\u2019t be touched, Councilmember Will Lahnen (R-District 3) laid out what that would mean for everything else.<\/p>\n \u201cGet rid of KHA, get rid of UF Health, all of the nonprofit spend, all cash incentives, and we\u2019re halfway there if the number is $375 million,\u201d said Lahnen. \u201dSo, which would be probably 50 percent cuts in everything that is non-public safety to get you the rest of the way there.\u201d<\/p>\n The House plan is likely not what voters will see on the ballot, though, as the Governor and Senate are still working on their own property tax proposal.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Speaking in St. Augustine last week, Governor Ron DeSantis emphasized the importance of making the numbers work and perfecting the ballot language.<\/p>\n \u201cVoters are going to read it. Are they going to like what they see or not just from an impression, right?\u201d said DeSantis.<\/p>\n Freeder argued ballot language can help, but it can be easier to scare voters away from something than it is to convince them to support something.<\/p>\n And even the most popular ideas have been known to run into trouble come Election Day.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, right now we\u2019re polling 66 percent on marijuana. We polled those kinds of numbers two years ago, and then lo and behold it doesn\u2019t hit that 60 percent threshold once a campaign kicks in right before the voting,\u201d said Freeder.<\/p>\n The Governor has said to expect a special session to finalize a property tax proposal in the coming months.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Most Floridians support eliminating property taxes on their homes as long as public safety and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,28,22615,348,116,351,118,117,349,350,84423,18151,346,345],"class_list":{"0":"post-178459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-cbs47","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-voters","12":"tag-fox30","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-jacksonville-fl","15":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","16":"tag-jacksonville-news","17":"tag-northeast-florida","18":"tag-southeast-georgia","19":"tag-tax-elimination","20":"tag-unf-poll","21":"tag-wfox","22":"tag-wjax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}