News Service of Florida \u2014 The title and summary of a property tax cut proposal to be placed on the November ballot contain political rhetoric and are misleading, and must be redrafted, a Leon Circuit Court judge ruled late Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cVoters are entitled to a fair, clear, accurate and non-misleading ballot statement to assist them in making their critical determination,\u201d Judge David Frank wrote in his 18-page ruling. \u201cThe present ballot language would deprive the voters of the opportunity to make a meaningful decision.”<\/p>\n
The proposal, drafted by Gov. Ron DeSantis, increases the homestead exemption from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and raises it to $250,000 in 2028. Another provision reduces the annual cap on assessment increases for non-homestead properties from 10 percent to 5 percent.<\/p>\n
But before passing it the GOP-led Legislature changed the measure to carve out the portion of property tax bills that pay for public schools from the increase in the homestead exemption.<\/p>\n
The ruling is a win for the groups that initially brought three different lawsuits against the proposed amendment before they were consolidated into one case.<\/p>\n
Among those who brought the legal challenges were Save Our Voters From Misleading Ballot Language, a nonprofit formed to challenge the proposal, Thomas Campenni, former Mayor of Stuart, and Michael Davey, former Mayor of Key Biscayne, former U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, and former Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
But the victory doesn\u2019t mean the measure will be tossed from the ballot. Under state law, if the ruling isn\u2019t appealed Attorney General James Uthmeier has 10 days to rewrite the ballot summary in line with Frank\u2019s instructions.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal here right from the beginning was not to take this off the ballot,\u201d Jamie Cole, attorney for Save Our Voters From Misleading Ballot Language, told the News Service of Florida. \u201cWe want the voters to have the opportunity to make an informed decision and in order to do that they need fair and accurate language.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Uthmeier didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Brandes noted the court faces a deadline near the end of the month to get the proper ballot language settled before November ballots are finalized, so any appeal could jeopardize the measure.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an option but we’ll see if the (Attorney General) exercises it, but they run into a real time crunch if they start doing that,\u201d Brandes said.<\/p>\n
In his ruling, Frank detailed specific changes that should be made to the ballot summary.<\/p>\n
For example, after stating \u201cthis amendment benefits Florida taxpayers by:\u201d the ballot summary uses the phrases \u201cexempting homestead properties from taxation,\u201d \u201censuring funding for core services,\u201d \u201cprotecting small businesses\u201d and \u201censuring fairness for Florida residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
None of those phrases should be used, the ruling states, as they are \u201cpolitical rhetoric, not neutral, not explanation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frank also took issue with the ballot summary\u2019s omission of how the measure could change the nature of the \u201chome rule\u201d provisions of the state constitution, which give local governments broad discretion to spend property tax revenues.<\/p>\n
Under the proposed amendment, cities and counties would have their property tax spending restricted to a list of approved uses: \u201cpublic safety, education and schools, infrastructure, natural resources, bond debt service, retirement benefits for employees, operations and administration and, except as prohibited by general law, other expenditures approved by county officers or county or municipal governing bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Critics of the proposal have argued that would give the Legislature, not local governments, the final say over their budgets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe amendment purports to change the constitutional baseline of city and county power by placing in the Constitution for the first time the Legislature\u2019s right to control ad valorem tax spending,\u201d Frank wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News Service of Florida \u2014 The title and summary of a property tax cut proposal to be placed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-362691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362691","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=362691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}