Voters might be asked to reduce property-tax increases. Opponents ask: At what cost?
A constitutional amendment that will give voters the opportunity to modestly lower the annual increases of the assessed value of their property is moving through the Florida Legislature intended for the 2024 ballot. It could result in lowering annual increases in property taxes.
But opponents say the measure will unfairly hamstring the state’s 29 smallest counties, reduce revenue going to local government and schools, and shift tax burdens from homeowners to newcomers and low-income residents, including many who rent.
The House Ways and Means Committee voted 13-8 on Monday to advance the measure, HJR 469, with one Republican joining Democrats to oppose the bill.
If 60% of voters approve, the amendment would modify the Save Our Homes provision in the Florida Constitution by lowering the cap on the amount a home’s assessed value could increase from 3% a year to 2% a year, potentially lowering people’s tax bill.
The amendment would take effect on Jan. 1, 2025, and because it is a joint resolution, it is not subject to the governor’s veto powers.
Early forecasts from the Legislature’s revenue estimators are that the measure will save taxpayers $146 million statewide, with about $93 million coming out of county coffers and $53 million from public-school budgets.
Legislators have not asked for detailed estimates of what the change would mean to their counties and schools, but the Miami-Dade County Commission has endorsed the proposal, which is being sponsored by local legislators, Sen. Bryan Avila, R-Hialeah Gardens, and Rep. Juan Fernandez-Barquin, a Republican who lives in unincorporated Miami-Dade County.
Miami-Dade County, which predicts it will lose $7 million off its $11 billion budget, faces the largest impact in the state.
“Right now, we’re going through a very difficult economic time,’’ Avila told the Senate Community Affairs Committee when he presented the bill on Feb. 15. “Something like this would go a long way to mitigate that cost of living. It would cause cities and municipalities to reassess their spending.”
But Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Hollywood Democrat, responded that the savings will average about $10 per residential property in Miami-Dade and “didn’t make a lot of sense.” A better initiative, he said, would have been to impose a cap on the rising cost of property insurance, something that legislators have repeatedly refused to consider.
“When we ask constituents; ‘Do you want to lower [the cap] from 3% to 2%,’ of course, they’re gonna say yes, because it’s less money,’’ he said. “... So we’re going to the weakest link — or that which is easiest to preempt — because we just don’t have either the acumen or the will to put a cap on things that are exploding at a much faster rate.”
Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, said on Monday when the House committee heard the measure that because expensive homes appreciate more quickly than middle- to lower-cost homes, the change will benefit higherincome homeowners more and will lead to wider disparities over time.
“I am concerned that if we are trying to get relief to people in need, this is not very targeted,’’ she said. “The people who do benefit the most are the wealthiest who don’t necessarily need that break compared to renters, compared to folks that will rely on the government services maybe more than others.”
While homeowners pay their property taxes directly, renters pay indirectly because a portion of their monthly rent goes toward their landlords’ propertytax bills.
Chris Doolin, a lobbyist for the small-county coalition, warned that many of the state’s smallest counties cannot raise their tax rates and shift the cost to make up for lost revenue, potentially causing them to make deep cuts to services.