negotiation of a property-tax cut<\/a> leaders want to lay before voters in November. And if you\u2019re wondering \u201cwhat could possibly be bad about a property tax cut?\u201d then please let us explain.<\/p>\nFlorida\u2019s local governments \u2014 cities, counties, school boards and others \u2014 rely on property taxes to fund roughly half their annual budgets. For that money, Floridians get police and fire services, parks, environmental preservation, public schools, animal control, responsible growth planning and much more.<\/p>\n
Most cities and counties set their property tax rates low. While no city or county government is perfect, the reality is that local governments are the closest to the people and often, the most responsive and fiscally prudent.<\/p>\n
WAVE OF AGGRESSION<\/p>\n
In recent years, they\u2019ve also become the targeted punching bag for Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP-dominated Legislature. Blaise Ingoglia, who is acting as Florida\u2019s chief financial officer, accusing local governments of wasteful spending (though almost never producing actual evidence of waste.) Meanwhile, the Legislature has become increasingly blatant about its attempts to strip power from local officials \u2014 most particularly, the power to manage growth at a steady, deliberate pace.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers have also worked to undermine local governments\u2019 ability to celebrate different cultures or work toward diversity, equity and inclusion in their own work space and through their interactions with the community. And in the session that just passed, lawmakers approved a bill that allows them to be stripped of their elected offices if they don\u2019t toe the line.<\/p>\n
Property taxes are just another avenue of attack. By starving cities and counties of revenue, they restrict local leaders\u2019 ability to meet the needs of their communities. Among things threatened: Youth sports leagues. Senior programs like Meals on Wheels. Services for homeless people and domestic-abuse victims. It goes on and on.<\/p>\n
There are theories about why GOP leaders undermine the cities and counties they are supposed to be representing. After all, many lawmakers got their political start by serving on a city commission or town council \u2014 they know first-hand that most local governments run their operations responsibly.<\/p>\n
There are a few we find plausible.<\/p>\n
FIGHTING DIRTY<\/p>\n
First, there\u2019s the distraction factor. If local residents are outraged at actions coming from City Hall, they may pay less attention to the ludicrous excesses flowing south from Tallahassee \u2014 stunts like lavishing billions of dollars to build a detention camp in the middle of the Everglades with no planning or permitting.<\/p>\n
By itself, that\u2019s not enough to justify the extraordinary aggression that Gov. Ron DeSantis and top lawmakers have directed toward local government officials. So here\u2019s another: Big-money donors in the homebuilding and manufacturing industry don\u2019t want to mess with locals fussing about the impact of another brand-new, sprawling community or the pollution potential of a new manufacturing complex. It\u2019s much more convenient \u2014 one-stop shopping, if you will \u2014 to lean on lawmakers with demands to eviscerate community growth and development controls.<\/p>\n
A LOCAL EXAMPLE<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where betrayal can hit the hardest. When legislators travel to Tallahassee for their sessions, they drive through their own communities first. They understand the history of community initiatives like conservation land-buying programs or regulations that protect the tranquil beauty of rural areas against the threat of urban sprawl.<\/p>\n
Seminole County has had such a barrier in place for more than 20 years and rarely faced a challenge. In fact, the boundaries are so popular in this Republican-dominated district that they are regarded as , all but untouchable. Orange County just adopted its own set of growth controls.<\/p>\n
So explain why, on the last day of this year\u2019s session, Sen. Jason Brodeur, whose district includes much of Seminole County, tried his damndest to kill the barriers by supporting a last-minute amendment that would essentially force both counties to erase those protective lines. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, would have enabled any landowner on the \u201crural\u201d side of the boundary to sue the county \u2014 and by extension, county taxpayers \u2014 for damages, even if they had no plans to develop the land.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s not enough space to unpick all the false and misleading statements offered by Martin, Brodeur and few other lawmakers during an intense hour-plus of debate on Martin\u2019s plan. We\u2019ll link the video on our website. See how many exaggerations and omissions you can spot.<\/p>\n
TIME TO LEAD<\/p>\n
The property tax proposals are just another front for attack. And lawmakers seem pretty confident that county and city residents will approve it without much thought.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time for local leaders to fight back. This is not a conservative vs. liberal issue, it\u2019s a power play, and elected officials in each community can\u2019t afford to keep surrendering. Starting this week, they must mobilize: Have every county and city elected official hard at work explaining to their constituents what is at stake \u2014- and urging them to contact legislators in a mass public message of condemnation. This is the message: They see through the sparkly promise of a tax cut. And they are tired of lawmakers trying to make themselves look good by beating up city and county officials.<\/p>\n
This is war \u2014 in fact, it has been for a long time. And the attacks have only become more violent with each passing session. It\u2019s time for local leaders to defend their constituents and the autonomy and authority voters entrusted to them.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Use insight@orlandosentinel.com to contact us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Usually, there\u2019s a sigh of relief when the Florida Legislature adjourns its annual session\u2014 as they did mid-afternoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2853,28,30,29,482,109,76410],"class_list":["post-196123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-editorials","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-opinion","tag-social","tag-social-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196123","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=196123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}