By Gray Rohrer, The News Service of Florida<\/p>\n
Senate President Ben Albritton voted to put Amendment 3, the major property tax cut, before the voters, but when he casts his ballot he\u2019ll be voting against the measure.<\/p>\n
The Wauchula Republican, who represents a rural district stretching from southern Polk County down into Lee County, says the amendment would seriously impair the ability of small towns and counties to provide essential services.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a native of Florida\u2019s heartland, our rural communities are near and dear to my heart. It\u2019s who I am,\u201d Albritton said in a released statement. \u201cAmendment 3 would eliminate up to 30 percent of resources for Florida\u2019s rural counties, gutting essential support for law enforcement, emergency response services and critical infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement was shared on social media by the Florida Sheriff\u2019s Association, which is opposed to Amendment 3, fearing it would slash resources available for counties\u2019 law enforcement budgets.<\/p>\n
Albritton voted for the measure (HB 1F) in a special session in June, but throughout the public debate over the issue he warned small, rural communities should be protected from any large slash in revenues.<\/p>\n
Albritton is the latest Senate leader to come out against the proposal. Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, a Naples Republican and Albritton\u2019s predecessor as Senate President, also said she\u2019s against Amendment 3, and for similar reasons.<\/p>\n
The push to cut property taxes came from Gov. Ron DeSantis, who championed the issue for several months. His office developed the structure of the proposal that will appear before voters on the Nov. 3 ballot.<\/p>\n
The measure increases the homestead property tax exemption from the current $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027, and then to $250,000 in 2028. The Legislature, though, exempted the portion of the property tax bill that goes to K-12 schools from the increased exemption, which irked DeSantis. Another provision of the measure lowers the annual cap on assessment increases for non-homestead properties from 10 percent to 5 percent.<\/p>\n
DeSantis initially said he wouldn\u2019t campaign heavily for it but later said he would. On Wednesday he held a discussion with Miami-Dade County officials to back Amendment 3, and downplayed the effects it would have on rural areas if it passes. The state government could give grants to cities and counties for needed services, he argued. He said Albritton\u2019s opposition shows support for the move came from the \u201cgrassroots\u201d not \u201cpolitical elites.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is bottom up, it\u2019s is not top down,\u201d DeSantis told reporters. \u201cLeft to their own devices, the politicians would\u2019ve never put this on the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n
In pushing for the measure, DeSantis pointed to the sharp increase in property tax values that has led to a surge in revenues for local governments in recent years, from $33 billion to $55.2 billion from 2019 to 2024. That squeeze came at the same time inflation also hit families hard on groceries, property insurance and utility costs.<\/p>\n
But a coalition of local governments officials and law enforcement officials are opposed to Amendment 3, saying the cuts will be too drastic for many cities and counties to absorb without cutting into essential services.<\/p>\n
The amendment needs 60 percent support from voters to become law.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Gray Rohrer, The News Service of Florida Senate President Ben Albritton voted to put Amendment 3, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-434768","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\/434768","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=434768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}