PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. \u2014 A proposed change to Florida’s constitution could mean lower property taxes for homeowners, but local law enforcement says it could also gut public safety budgets.<\/p>\n
Election offices are now issuing vote-by-mail ballots for voters who have already requested them. The deadline to register is Oct. 22.<\/p>\n
Amendment Three is on the ballot this year and would dramatically reduce what Florida homeowners pay in property taxes.<\/p>\n
For Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell, property tax revenue makes up 99 percent of his budget. That includes funding for law enforcement, court security, the county jail and dispatchers who answer 911 calls.<\/p>\n
Prummell recently returned from a conference in Tallahassee where first responders from across the state gathered to oppose the amendment and launch a community education campaign.<\/p>\n
“I disagree with what the governor said that we’re continuing to \u2018pay a rent\u2019 to our county and municipalities, you’re not \u2018paying a rent.’ You’re paying for services. So it’s what services do you want within your county and city?” said Prummell.<\/p>\n
Some of those services include road construction, public libraries, parks and recreation and emergency services.<\/p>\n
Prummell said current countywide response times sit at three minutes and 45 seconds. During 2024, when the department had 60 job vacancies, response times climbed to five minutes and 18 seconds.<\/p>\n
He said if Amendment Three passes, he could be forced to eliminate hundreds of positions, sending emergency wait times even higher.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have 332 law enforcement positions. You take $47 million, that is 275 positions. So that is crippling us. Now I’m not saying that that means I’m going to take 275. We’re going to have to be very creative,” said Prummell.<\/p>\n
Beyond response times, Prummell said fewer deputies on the road also puts his officers’ safety at risk.<\/p>\n
“I’m scared to death for my deputies because if I have less staff, that means there’s less people out there to respond\u2026 for backup. So if somebody’s in a critical incident, I don’t know how far away backup is going to be for them, and that’s a scary situation,” said Prummell.<\/p>\n
Port Charlotte resident Marcia Knights said she wasn’t aware of Amendment Three before speaking with WINK News. She said the idea of lower property taxes would be a much appreciated relief.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would relish that because it would decrease my monthly payment by a lot,\u201d Knights said.<\/p>\n
She added, if tax dollars continue flowing to law enforcement, she would like to see a shift in how policing is done.<\/p>\n
“If our funds are going, property taxes are going towards the police, instead of more vehicles or more computers or more technologically advanced vehicles let’s see social work being involved. You know, when they come out on a call, the escalation, you know, because of cultural barriers,” said Knights.<\/p>\n
Prummell warned that unlike a piece of legislation, a change to the state’s constitution is nearly impossible to reverse.<\/p>\n
“This is not like it’s a piece of legislation where after a year we show it’s a train wreck, which it will be a train wreck, that they can go back and fix it, we can’t do that. So, do your homework and make sure this is something you really want before you do vote yes on it,” said Prummell.<\/p>\n
Public safety officials are urging voters to research Amendment Three carefully before making a decision that could permanently change the state’s constitution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. \u2014 A proposed change to Florida’s constitution could mean lower property taxes for homeowners, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,4250,115],"class_list":["post-410256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410256","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=410256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}