Fort Lauderdale leaders are preparing for a \u201cworst case scenario\u201d of a possible $100 million budget gap as Florida lawmakers debate slashing or eliminating property taxes and federal funding grants expire.<\/p>\n
At Tuesday\u2019s commission meeting, a discussion on the upcoming fiscal year\u2019s budget ended up centering on what the city would do in the event that state lawmakers\u2019 efforts to slash property taxes \u2014 a potentially major blow to Fort Lauderdale\u2019s revenue \u2014 make it to the ballot in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we sit here today, my view is we need to be doing everything now to prepare for a worst case scenario,\u201d said City Commissioner Ben Sorensen. \u201cIt\u2019s not \u2018the sky is falling,\u2019 but we\u2019ve got to be reasonable that there is a strong likelihood that we\u2019re going to face significant deficits in our budget.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last month, the Florida House passed a bill seeking to repeal nearly all property taxes<\/a>. Gov. Ron DeSantis has been pushing to eliminate property tax entirely and plans to deal with the issue later this year during campaign season to give Republican candidates a boost in the midterm elections. He showed interest in calling a special session on property tax \u201cwhen the voters are watching\u201d this July or August, he said last October.<\/p>\n But the House and Senate are at odds over the property tax issue, potentially throwing a wrench in DeSantis\u2019 plans. Both chambers of the legislature need to pass the same joint resolution to get a proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot. If a property tax proposal does pass the House and Senate, Florida voters need to approve it by at least 60% for it to become law. The law would take effect Jan. 1, 2027, affecting the 2028 fiscal year.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the City of Fort Lauderdale has been watching with unease.<\/p>\n Nearly 30 percent of the city\u2019s ad valorem revenue, about $72.8 million, comes from homesteaded properties, said assistant city manager Yvette Matthews at the Tuesday meeting. All of that money \u2014 which makes up 14 percent of the city\u2019s general fund \u2014 is at risk.<\/p>\n City staff are monitoring all property tax proposals moving through the legislature, including the bill approved in the Florida House, said city spokesperson Belal Jaber. \u201cThese are current projections as the bill stands today, there could be additional modifications as it moves through the process,\u201d Jaber said in an email.<\/p>\n But losing property tax revenue isn\u2019t the only budget concern. The city is already anticipating a roughly $20 million deficit in 2028, in part because that\u2019s when a federal grant that allowed for the hiring of additional firefighters runs out, said city manager Rickelle Williams. That means in a few years Fort Lauderdale might be in the hole for about $100 million, depending on if Florida voters axe the property tax, Sorensen said.<\/p>\n Williams told city commissioners her staff is preparing for a significant deficit ahead of time, though it is unclear what may happen in the legislature.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are already engaging in some exercises at the department level to identify where we could see some cost savings. But to get to the $100 million nightmare scenario, we\u2019re going to have to make some very strategic decisions,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI believe that we will have to potentially sacrifice some of the services that we offer or find opportunities to generate revenue that we have not yet pulled the trigger on or leveraged. I think that scenario will lead us to making some dramatic changes in the way that we operate and staff as a city.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUnless we decide to raise taxes,\u201d said Mayor Dean Trantalis.<\/p>\n \u201cWhich I\u2019m not interested in doing,\u201d Sorensen responded.<\/p>\n Commissioners have been hesitant to raise Fort Lauderdale\u2019s relatively low municipal taxes \u2014 even if it means balancing the budget. Last year, when a financial expert hired by the city encouraged leaders to increase the tax rate, elected officials pushed back on the idea, the Sun Sentinel reported.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Lauderdale leaders are preparing for a \u201cworst case scenario\u201d of a possible $100 million budget gap as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[28,9129,22615,249,251,250,8191,7074,412,85974],"class_list":{"0":"post-182196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-house","10":"tag-florida-voters","11":"tag-fort-lauderdale","12":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","13":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news","14":"tag-property-tax","15":"tag-property-taxes","16":"tag-ron-desantis","17":"tag-worst-case-scenario"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182196","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=182196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}