JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Duval voters will be asked two questions on their ballot in November that both deal with property taxes.<\/p>\n
Amendment 3 would phase out property taxes for local governments, and a local referendum asks voters to extend an extra property tax that goes towards teacher pay in the district.<\/p>\n
Political experts who spoke with Action News Jax said it\u2019s unclear whether one initiative may help or hurt the other, but it could come down to turnout.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Voters like Samuel Abreu, whose mom is a teacher, said he plans to vote against Amendment 3 and for the teacher pay measure.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s teachers out there that are actually even struggling more with, not just property tax, but making it day by day. And they\u2019re the ones pouring back into our community every single time,\u201d said Abreu.<\/p>\n Duval voters originally approved the extra local tax for teacher pay back in 2022, and the new referendum would extend its lifespan through 2030.<\/p>\n UNF Political Science Professor Sean Freeder noted back in 2022, the school tax passed with 53 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a close call. This could be something where if the wrong effects hit it, it could be driven below 50 percent,\u201d said Freeder.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Freeder argued if Amendment 3 ends up turning out high numbers of voters looking to cut taxes, the teacher pay referendum could have a harder time passing.<\/p>\n That being said, he argued if Amendment 3 opponents win the turnout battle, it could actually result in higher support for the local referendum.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven how close the previous one was in 2022, it\u2019s gonna matter in some way that\u2019s hard to tell which direction it goes in,\u201d said Freeder.<\/p>\n Duval School Board Member Melody Bolduc (District 7) told us on a recent episode of This Week in the 904 that the extra local property tax ensures district salaries remain competitive and accounts for about $8,000 of extra cash a year in local teachers\u2019 pockets. <\/p>\n When asked whether she\u2019s worried Amendment 3 might hurt the referendum\u2019s chances of passing, she encouraged voters to educate themselves on both proposals.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to know, but I know they\u2019re interested, and I know they\u2019ll get educated and my hope is they\u2019ll reach out to us when they have questions,\u201d said Bolduc.<\/p>\n The teacher pay referendum needs to get 50 percent support to pass this November.<\/p>\n Amendment 3 faces a higher bar, needing 60 percent support to pass.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Duval voters will be asked two questions on their ballot in November that both deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[643,17907,144428,794,72909,116,118,117,971,55599,44784,634,124586,144429,72903,12160,144430,9939],"class_list":["post-353599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news_jack","tag-amendment","tag-amendment_3","tag-duval","tag-frieder","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jake","tag-jake_stan","tag-jake_stofan","tag-local","tag-melody_bolduc","tag-samuel_abreu","tag-sean_frieder","tag-side","tag-this_week_in_the_904","tag-unf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353599","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=353599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}