{"id":293518,"date":"2026-06-02T20:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T20:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/293518\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T20:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T20:32:10","slug":"whats-inside-the-final-version-of-floridas-property-tax-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/293518\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s inside the final version of Florida’s property tax proposal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida voters will now have their chance to decide whether the state should implement a cut on homestead property taxes<\/a> in the November election.<\/p>\n

Voting 30-9, the Florida Senate joined the House on Tuesday in passing a resolution expanding the homestead exemption that Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled last week.<\/p>\n

The measure, named “Save our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes<\/a>,” ran out of the gate with a heavy-handed approach to significantly reducing property taxes<\/a> levied across the board, even those for schools.<\/p>\n

On Monday night, the resolution was amended to exclude school levies from the proposal, which as originally proposed would have cost Escambia County Public Schools nearly $100 million in funding in two years.<\/p>\n

The bill is now somewhat closer to the Florida House’s HJR 203 proposal, though there are some key differences. Here’s what to know about the measure.<\/p>\n

See church cut ribbon on Trinity Village\u2019s tiny houses in Pensacola<\/p>\n

1 of 3<\/p>\n

Bishop William Wack cuts the ribbon cutting during a ceremony at the Catholic Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee\u2019s Trinity Village in Pensacola on May 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

(Gregg Pachkowski\/Pensacola News Journal)What is Florida’s property tax cut proposal?<\/p>\n

DeSantis’ property tax cut proposal<\/a> looks similar to previous ones, but it doesn’t pull any punches. When it was first unveiled, it sought to fully exempt the first $250,000 of a homestead’s value from all tax levies.<\/p>\n

The version of the proposal that passed on Tuesday will exempt up to $150,000 of an existing homestead’s assessed value from non-school levies starting on Jan 1, 2027. The exemption will increase to $250,000 on Jan. 1, 2028.<\/p>\n

New homesteaders who purchase a home after Dec. 31, 2026, won’t see those benefits kick in for five years, however. Up to $50,000 of a homestead property’s assessed value will be exempt starting on Jan. 1, 2027. The homesteader won’t receive the full exemption until they have occupied the home for five years.<\/p>\n

Starting in 2030, local governments that determine a “critical local need” will be able to shorten or waive this five-year waiting period with a two-thirds vote.<\/p>\n

One of the newer changes is that local governments and municipalities would be required to spend remaining taxes solely on specific expenditures:<\/p>\n

Public safety, which includes law enforcement, fire service and emergency medical service<\/p>\n

Education and public schools<\/p>\n

Natural resources, which include flood control measures<\/p>\n

Retirement benefits of local government employees<\/p>\n

Operations and administration costs for local governments<\/p>\n

Non-homesteaded residential and non-residential properties will benefit from the proposal, too. Annual property value assessments will be cut in half, decreasing from 10% to 5%.<\/p>\n

The current measure only exempts homestead property taxes up to $250,000, but DeSantis has proposed that lawmakers increase that exemption to $500,000 and eventually eliminate property taxes on all homesteads.<\/p>\n

What was changed in the final proposal?<\/p>\n

The final version of the proposal removed the language that allowed for the creation of a state trust fund that would have provided financial grants to local governments.<\/p>\n

The fund was intended to help some local counties and municipalities cover the cost of core services like education, law enforcement and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The original version also expanded homestead exemptions to include taxes levied by schools. That was also stricken from the bill.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Cutting property taxes in Florida will now be decided by voters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida voters will now have their chance to decide whether the state should implement a cut on homestead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,9129,29,4215,14559,123832,829,7074,7928,412],"class_list":["post-293518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-house","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-senate","tag-homestead-exemption","tag-homestead-property","tag-local-governments","tag-property-taxes","tag-proposal","tag-ron-desantis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293518","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=293518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}