LEALMAN, Fla. \u2014 Fire officials and local leaders in Pinellas County are assessing how Amendment 3, a proposed state constitutional amendment that would increase the homestead property tax exemption, could affect public safety budgets if voters approve it in November.<\/p>\n
The ballot measure would provide property tax savings for eligible homeowners. But some local governments and fire districts said it could also reduce the property tax revenue they use to fund public services, including fire department operations.<\/p>\n
In Safety Harbor, Mayor Joe Ayoub said city leaders are reviewing how they would pay for services if the amendment passes. He said the city estimates it could lose about $3 million in property tax revenue.<\/p>\n
One option under consideration is a fire assessment fee that residents would pay to help fund fire department operations, Ayoub said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know if it could replace 100% of the revenue loss from Amendment 3, or a certain percentage of it,\u201d Ayoub said. \u201cSo we\u2019re hiring a consultant that\u2019s looking at that, and when we know, that\u2019s going to help us make our decisions moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
The potential impact could be different for independent special fire districts. Jim Millican, division chief of the Lealman Fire District, said his district relies solely on ad valorem taxes and does not receive some of the other tax revenue available to cities.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn independent special district does not collect anything from the state of Florida, whether it\u2019s sales tax, gas tax,\u201d Millican said.<\/p>\n
Millican said he estimates Lealman could lose about 30% of its budget. He said about 85% of the district\u2019s budget goes toward personnel costs, leaving limited options to absorb a significant loss in revenue.<\/p>\n
A fire assessment fee could be one alternative, Millican said, but that would require voter approval.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the fire department, we never want to make a threat to our residents that, \u2018Hey, you cut our taxes, we\u2019re cutting your service.\u2019 That\u2019s not where we\u2019re going with it,\u201d Millican said. \u201cWhat they need to have realization of is we have to cut something, and what do we cut and how do we cut?\u201d<\/p>\n
Supporters of Amendment 3 said the measure would give homeowners significant property tax relief. Republican state Rep. Berny Jacques, who supports the amendment, said rising costs are putting pressure on homeowners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the situation where a lot of folks are in fear of losing their homes, this is a great opportunity for them to be able to give themselves a significant tax break while keeping their homes here in the state of Florida,\u201d Jacques said.<\/p>\n
Jacques also said the state would support first responders if the amendment creates funding issues for public safety.<\/p>\n
Ayoub and Millican said local agencies are also facing rising equipment costs and increased call volumes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to compete with other cities and businesses to recruit and retain employees,\u201d Ayoub said. \u201cSo across the board, our costs are going up, and we get to pay for that, and that\u2019s just the reality of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state requires constitutional amendments to get 60 percent of the vote to be approved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEALMAN, Fla. \u2014 Fire officials and local leaders in Pinellas County are assessing how Amendment 3, a proposed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3140,2967,115,596,99,277,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,1374,835],"class_list":["post-406779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-public-safety","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-politics","tag-public-safety","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-tyler-oneill","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406779","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=406779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}