![\"Gregory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TFL-L-Gregory-Pierce-01.jpeg\")
Gregory Pierce is a graduate student in social work at Barry University. (courtesy, Gregory Pierce)<\/p>\nOn Nov. 3, Florida voters will decide Amendment 3, on the ballot as \u201cSave Our Homes From Excessive Property Taxes.\u201d The amendment is not just about tax relief; it also changes what local governments may spend property tax revenue on.<\/p>\n
Beyond raising the homestead exemption, Amendment 3 rewrites what counties and cities may fund with property tax revenue. That change matters because, as a social worker, the services I\u2019ve been trained to help provide are not specifically named.<\/p>\n
The amendment raises the homestead exemption for non-school property taxes from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027, then to $250,000 in 2028. Legislative staff estimates that local governments would lose roughly $4.6 billion in revenue in the first year and $8.4 billion in the next.<\/p>\n
Gregory Pierce is a graduate student in social work at Barry University. (courtesy, Gregory Pierce)<\/p>\n
Less attention has gone to the constitutional language behind those cuts. Amendment 3 rewrites Article VII of the Florida Constitution to list the purposes counties and cities may fund: public safety, schools, infrastructure, natural resources and flood projects, debt, employee retirement benefits, and general operations. That final category is qualified by the phrase \u201cexcept those expenditures prohibited by general law,\u201d which leaves less room for services not specifically listed.<\/p>\n
Police, fire protection, and roads are expressly named. Addiction treatment, senior services, homelessness prevention, and many other services are not. Because counties fund those programs through general operations today, future Legislatures would have greater authority to decide what stays in that category, reinforcing the amendment\u2019s limits on local priorities.<\/p>\n
That concern isn\u2019t theoretical. I previously worked at a county-funded treatment center supported through Broward County\u2019s Human Services Department. During Broward County\u2019s June budget workshop, county leaders were already weighing a $10 million request for human services against nearly $1 billion in other county obligations. That request covered senior programs, rental assistance, homelessness prevention and food insecurity. Those decisions are already difficult, and cutting revenue while constitutionally prioritizing certain spending over others would make it even harder for those services to be funded.<\/p>\n
I understand why many homeowners support this amendment. Insurance premiums keep climbing, property taxes have risen, and longtime Floridians worry about staying in their homes. Those concerns are real, and anyone opposing Amendment 3 needs to acknowledge them.
But lowering taxes doesn\u2019t eliminate the need for the services those taxes support.<\/p>\n
The person in a county detox program doesn\u2019t disappear if funding disappears. The crisis just shows up somewhere else: an emergency room, a jail cell, an ambulance in the middle of the night. Those responses are harder on people and families, and often far more expensive than early help, which is why the stakes are so high and the amendment matters beyond taxes.<\/p>\n
Working in both addiction treatment and hospice taught me the same lesson. The least expensive care is the care provided before a crisis worsens. Prevention isn\u2019t a luxury. It\u2019s an investment that reduces the need for costlier interventions later.<\/p>\n
The ballot summary tells voters the amendment \u201crequires local governments to use remaining property taxes solely for core public needs including public safety, education and schools, infrastructure, and natural resources.\u201d It doesn\u2019t explain how the amendment restructures local spending authority, or that many community services aren\u2019t specifically named in the constitutional text. A lawsuit filed in June argues the summary reads more like advocacy than a neutral explanation. A judge heard that challenge<\/a> on July 29 but has yet to make a decision.<\/p>\n Florida requires 60% of voters to approve constitutional amendments. That threshold exists because constitutional changes deserve scrutiny, especially when they change how local governments provide essential services for years to come.<\/p>\n Before you vote, read the amendment, not just its title. Then decide whether this is the direction Florida should take, and whether the tradeoffs are worth the services that could be lost.<\/p>\n Gregory Pierce is a graduate student in social work at Barry University. He lives in Hollywood, previously interned at a county treatment center in Fort Lauderdale, and is now placed with a hospice and palliative care provider in South Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Nov. 3, Florida voters will decide Amendment 3, on the ballot as \u201cSave Our Homes From Excessive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[483,249,251,250,114,482],"class_list":["post-360655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-commentary","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360655","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=360655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}