{"id":299439,"date":"2026-06-07T21:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/299439\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T21:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:42:10","slug":"florida-property-tax-overhaul-sparks-concern-in-st-johns-county-commissioner-says-county-could-face-budget-squeeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/299439\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida property tax overhaul sparks concern in St. Johns County; Commissioner says county could face budget squeeze"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 St. Johns County officials are raising alarms about the recently proposed state constitutional amendment regarding property taxes.<\/p>\n

Florida voters will decide in November whether to approve the sweeping property tax overhaul<\/a> signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis \u2014 and one county commissioner wants residents to understand what\u2019s at stake.<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s office of management and budget estimates the county could see a decrease of $113 million in tax revenue by 2029.<\/p>\n

During a Board of County Commissioners meeting last week, Commissioner Christian Whitehurst, District 1, put that figure into perspective using last year\u2019s county budget of $400 million. <\/p>\n

Subtracting $113 million leaves $287 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur sheriff\u2019s department and fire department – of the $287 million that remains – takes roughly $250 million,\u201d Whitehurst said.<\/p>\n

He said this very \u201cconservative estimate\u201d would leave roughly $37 million dollars left to run parks and maintain nearly 1100 miles of road that are the county\u2019s responsibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think that we need to as much as we can, not before or against it, but just present the facts, about the impact that this has,\u201d Whitehurst said.<\/p>\n

The budget pressure could be further complicated by growing demands on public safety departments. According to our news partners at Jax Today<\/a>, firefighters are advocating for more time off, which could mean hiring additional staff. <\/p>\n

St. Johns County Sheriff Rob Hardwick also proposed a budget last week that includes an $8 million increase over the previous year. Hardwick says the money would be going towards higher pay for deputies and staff.<\/p>\n

If approved, the proposed amendment would expand the homestead exemption for non-school property taxes \u2014 rising to $150,000 beginning Jan. 1, 2027, and to $250,000 beginning Jan. 1, 2028. <\/p>\n

The proposal would also reduce the cap on annual assessment increases for many non-homestead properties and limit how counties and cities can use ad valorem tax revenue, restricting it to \u201ccore services.\u201d<\/p>\n

To take effect, the amendment would need 60% voter approval in November.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 St. Johns County officials are raising alarms about the recently proposed state constitutional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[125926,28,30,29,7074,125927,5902],"class_list":["post-299439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-board-of-commissioners","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-property-taxes","tag-sjcso","tag-st-johns-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299439","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=299439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}