{"id":310309,"date":"2026-06-17T10:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T10:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/310309\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T10:29:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T10:29:22","slug":"key-biscayne-cfo-maps-a-path-forward-as-village-plans-for-life-under-tax-amendment-key-biscayne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/310309\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Biscayne CFO maps a path forward as village plans for life under tax amendment | Key Biscayne"},"content":{"rendered":"

Village Chief Financial Officer Benjamin Nussbaum provided some further analysis of the property tax reduction proposal<\/a> during last week\u2019s Village Council meeting, saying that he and Village officials have been monitoring the possibilities since 2025.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, things moved quickly,” he said, cautioning that 60% of voter approval would still be needed to pass legislation.<\/p>\n

Basically, the homestead exemption rises from $50,000 to $150,000 the first year, and then to $250,000 the second year.<\/p>\n

“This will not impact the Fiscal Year 2027 budget, but we want to look ahead,” said Nussbaum, planning for the larger exemption, in particular.<\/p>\n

Keeping the millage as is, Nussbaum could see about an $800,000 impact the first year and about $1.6 million, or double, the following year.<\/p>\n

Nussbaum\u2019s research found that about 115 properties (4.1%) on Key Biscayne would end paying no taxes to the Village at the $250,000 level but they still would be levied for school board taxes, at the minimum.<\/p>\n

Since two-thirds of Key Biscayne properties are not homesteaded, Nussbaum believed it will have a longer-term impact.<\/p>\n

Pointing to one of his five slides shown at the meeting, Nussbaum said, “There is actually control on what we spend (the ad valorem) on.”<\/p>\n

The ballot pitches property taxes as funding only \u201ccore\u201d needs. The bill also lets ad valorem taxes fund municipal operations and administration, and the expenditures approved by municipal governing bodies, \u201cexcept those expenditures prohibited by general law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anything the Council approves is allowed unless general law bans it, broad enough to cover most of what the Village does.<\/p>\n

For example, Nussbaum mentions in his slides:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Police, Fire Rescue, Public Works, and debt (some $29.1 million) already absorb 91% of property taxes<\/a> \u2014 all clearly permitted on Key Biscayne.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Parks, the Community Center and athletics (some $7.5 million) would likely qualify under the operations catch-all.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Then, $13.3 million of non-property-tax revenue can cover anything that doesn’t.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, we have to tighten our belt, and we can do it, but the non-homesteaded (makes up) almost $50 million over a 10-year period,” Village Manager Steve Williamson said, in reference to the assessment cap for non-homesteaded properties to fall from 10% to 5% if voters approve.<\/p>\n

Nussbaum pointed out that it’s not a case of simply raising the millage, something that has actually been decreasing the past five years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It’s a balancing act to how we adapt,\u201d Nussbaum said. \u201cWe need to have an eye to the future.”<\/p>\n

In perspective, Mayor Joe Rasco said, “So, if we’re talking about a $330,000 road improvement, maybe we’d have to do it over 20 years instead of five.”<\/p>\n

“Deferring projects, yes, but deferring maintenance usually costs more in the long run,” Nussbaum said.<\/p>\n

Williamson said, “We’re going to do two things: Understand what the impact will be and address that, and talk about this year’s budget to prepare for 2028. We’ll come up with ideas on the expenditure side (but) we need to look (for) revenue sources.”<\/p>\n

Rasco pointed out that cities such as West Miami, Biscayne Park and Cutler Bay are all “facing serious problems (with this amendment). We’re in much better shape than a lot of cities.<\/p>\n

“The County will be in trouble also,” he surmised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Village Chief Financial Officer Benjamin Nussbaum provided some further analysis of the property tax reduction proposal during last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[87518,18087,126,123,125,124,24758,8191,126888,126887,8527],"class_list":["post-310309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-benjamin-nussbaum","tag-homesteaded-property-taxes","tag-key-biscayne","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-millage-rate","tag-property-tax","tag-property-tax-reduction","tag-property-tax-reduction-proposal","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310309","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=310309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}