Florida AG Uthmeier rewrites property tax amendment language after judge’s ruling<\/a><\/p>\nBut Mayor Jane Castor has also prepared a contingency budget in case the proposed constitutional amendment passes.<\/p>\n
Amendment 3 would increase Florida\u2019s homestead exemption to $150,000 for year one, and then increase it to $250,000 for the second year and beyond.<\/p>\n
Castor estimates the change could cost Tampa roughly $35 million in revenue during the first year, and more than $60 million the following year.<\/p>\n
Some critics of the plan say it could affect funding for police, fire, paramedic services, parks, roads and other infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n
Castor said the city would have to look for other sources of revenue to maintain those services if the amendment is passed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, just so many things that we wouldn\u2019t have the funding for, so we would have to find it somewhere else,\u201d she said. \u201cEither through assessments, through additional fees. It\u2019s going to be paid for in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed back against concerns that the tax changes would force local governments to cut essential services.<\/p>\n
At a recent press conference, DeSantis said that local governments have significantly increased their revenues in recent years and need to control spending.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve gotten almost twice the revenue that they got just seven or eight years ago,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cYou can\u2019t keep spending at this level indefinitely.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Amendment 3 passes, experts say local governments could begin feeling the effects of reduced property tax revenue by spring 2027, with the financial impact becoming more significant by the summer and fall.<\/p>\n
The challenge could be particularly significant for essential services.<\/p>\n
The city of Tampa has said the cost of police, fire and paramedic services alone exceeds the amount of property tax revenue the city collects overall.<\/p>\n
To make up for potential losses, local governments are considering a range of options, including staffing reductions, special assessments, additional fees and even increases to local gas taxes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The City of Tampa is preparing for a potential hit to its budget if Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,28,276,2635,2287,115,99,135,137,136,278],"class_list":["post-373649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-top-stories","tag-florida","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-jason-lanning","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373649","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=373649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}