Orange County has abandoned any effort to put a tax measure on the ballot this year.<\/p>\n
The sudden decision came Monday toward the end of a four-hour-long, special county commission meeting at which the board could not reach consensus on the scope and structure of a proposal to increase the sales tax, after considering an array of ideas that could have helped fund affordable housing projects, buy land for conservation or parks, and underwrite transportation-related infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not want to make this an exercise in futility where we are tasking staff to go out and do a lot of number crunching and things that we\u2019re not intentionally going to do anything with,\u201d said Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, sensing the board\u2019s discord.<\/p>\n
Commissioners had not settled on details like the size of the proposed increase, how long it would be assessed, or how the money should be spent.<\/p>\n
An analysis by The Trust For Public Land estimated a 1% increase in the county sales tax would raise about $757.6 million a year. Such a tax would add $169 to the normal bills paid by a household with an income of about $77,000 a year. But most of the tax money would come from the millions of tourists who visit Orlando, primarily for its theme parks.<\/p>\n
The commission was facing a fast-approaching deadline of May 7 to draft, approve and submit a proposal to the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, a research arm of the Florida Legislature, to qualify for the November ballot.<\/p>\n
Political headwinds were strong, noted Demings, who is vying to be the Democratic Party\u2019s candidate for Florida governor.<\/p>\n
In Tallahassee last month, the Florida House passed a proposal to eliminate non-school property taxes for homesteaded properties, which would lead to deep funding cuts for local governments if the measure gets on the state ballot and voters approve.<\/p>\n
Demings said he has heard cost-of-living concerns while campaigning, which figure into his doubts about a tax measure now.\u00a0 He said he believes the state electorate will vote to rid themselves of property tax obligations \u2014 and local governments will have to find a way to adjust.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcross the state of Florida, across the country, there are many conversations about affordability,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to advance a ballot initiative that is going to cost people extra money then you have to be able to articulate to them what they\u2019re going to get for paying the extra money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orange County voters handily rejected a transportation sales tax in 2022 with 58% voting no. Then two years ago, Demings and other county leaders opted against a reboot of the campaign, though transit problems have worsened in Central Florida as its population swelled.<\/p>\n
In the final year of his final term as mayor, Demings said he has not budged from his firm belief that the county needs a dedicated funding source to untangle its transportation network. \u201cBut, you know, we have to be honest with ourselves, is this the right time?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Demings said he couldn\u2019t support an effort to go forward this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually we\u2019ll get there,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe in this community. I believe in the people who work here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The board won\u2019t be able to revisit a measure until 2028. Demings will be out of the mayor\u2019s office by then and the board of commissioners, which will expand from six members to eight, will likely be reconfigured.<\/p>\n
shudak@orlandosentinel.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange County has abandoned any effort to put a tax measure on the ballot this year. The sudden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,109,1798],"class_list":{"0":"post-179962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-orange-county","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-orlando-headlines","15":"tag-orlando-news","16":"tag-social","17":"tag-transportation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179962","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=179962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}