Momentum for drastically reducing property taxes in Florida is seemingly unstoppable. So city, town, village and county officials have stepped up warnings about the jeopardy such cuts present to the local government services people rely on for their safety and quality of life.
Even if every last dollar of what critics deem wasteful or frivolous is squeezed out of local government budgets, they argue the savings would fall far short of the money needed to make up for the kind of cuts being contemplated in Tallahassee.
Programs and services that range from roads and sidewalks to parks and libraries would be cut, they say.
Even the most politically sacred priority, public safety — including spending on police, sheriff’s deputies, fire-rescue and 911 — would suffer, they say, dismissing assurances from advocates of slashing property taxes that those budgets would be protected.
The prospect of property tax cuts, and the effects, has been a central issue at recent gatherings of state legislators in South Florida and at the state Capitol in Tallahassee, and at meetings of the region’s city, town, village and county officials.
State legislators, including those sympathetic to local governments, were blunt in their assessments.
“You need to justify your existence,” said state Sen. Barbara Sharief, a Broward Democrat and former county commissioner, elected twice by her colleagues to serve terms as county mayor, and former Miramar city commissioner.
State Rep. Rep. Robin Bartleman, a Democratic former member of the Broward School Board and Weston City Commission, recently told local government officials: “You are going to be fighting for your lives.”
The push
Gov. Ron DeSantis put the idea at the top of the Florida agenda when he started talking early this year about eliminating property taxes.
DeSantis is seeking a dramatic dénouement before term limits end his time as governor after next year’s elections. A legacy including something as big as a radical reduction in property taxes could help DeSantis sell himself to primary voters if he makes another attempt to win the Republican presidential nomination.
Talk earlier in the year of eliminating property taxes had been scaled back in recent months. A range of proposals have been introduced in advance of the 2026 legislative session that would leave school taxes in place and eliminate, phase out or substantially reduce other governments’ property taxes on owner-occupied homes.
So many competing political interests are interacting on the issue that no one knows just what’s going to happen, when and how, and the financial implications for local governments and taxpayers.
Republicans who control the state House of Representatives have put forward seven proposed amendments to the state Constitution, some of which would dramatically reduce or eliminate property taxes for homeowners — and dramatically reduce revenue to local government.
Some would be far reaching and others would be targeted. And some are contradictory. One, for example, would eliminate all non-school taxes on owner-occupied residential property. Another would implement a phase out over 10 years. And another would eliminate non-school taxes for homeowners older than 65.
“People are screaming for relief,” said state Rep. Chip LaMarca, a Republican and former Broward County commissioner and Lighthouse Point city commissioner.
And Republicans who control the state Senate say they, too, want property tax reductions. Sen. Bryan Avila, the Republican chair of the Finance and Tax Committee, said at its most recent meeting that the Senate president is “committed to the issue and committed to providing property tax relief.”
Though many Democrats are wary or opposed to the moves, not all are. Broward County Commissioner Michael Udine, a former county mayor and former Parkland mayor, said “the public is demanding” property tax relief.
And state Sen. Mack Bernard, a Palm Beach County Democrat who served as county mayor and as Delray Beach commissioner, has also introduced a range of proposed constitutional amendments to reduce property taxes.
“As property tax bills arrive for families around Florida, living in our state feels more expensive than ever,” Bernard said in a written statement. “Voters should have a chance to decide on what the best financial relief is for themselves.”
Affordability
The high cost of living in Florida — including housing, utilities, insurance and taxes — have many Floridians stressed.
A poll released last month by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab found 14% of Florida voters said housing costs were the most important problem facing the state today, statistically tied with the 12% who cited property insurance costs and 11% who cited property taxes.
“Concerns over housing and all of its associated costs, namely property taxes and insurance, have really come to the forefront over the past few years,” UNF political scientist Michael Binder said in a statement. “And that’s across party lines. It seems like one thing Florida voters can all agree on is that the rent — or mortgage — is too damn high.”
Democrats emphasize insurance costs as the big culprit, arguing Republicans who control state government haven’t done enough to help ratepayers.
Republicans, led by DeSantis, have been emphasizing property taxes.
House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell told reporters in recent days that the proposals are “a distraction from the fact that Republican politicians cannot or will not fix the property insurance crisis.”
But state Rep. Hillary Cassel, a Broward Republican, said property taxes can and should be trimmed. “I think there’s better balance. I think we’ve seen that there’s been excessive spending, and I think we’ve seen that we can provide relief for residents in their pocketbook.”
Voters
The kind of major changes under discussion in Tallahassee would require amending the Florida Constitution, which requires voter approval.
“People are hurting so bad right now,” Sharief said, that anything on the ballot would likely pass.
Her assessment was supported by a September poll conducted for the James Madison Institute, a conservative think tank based in Tallahassee.
The poll said 65% of Florida voters said they would support a constitutional amendment “to significantly reduce or eliminate property taxes.” Just 15% of those surveyed would oppose such an amendment and 20% weren’t sure.
A constitutional amendment requires 60% to pass.
Impact
As much as people want to pay less, many local government leaders say that without property tax money or some alternative source of funding they won’t have the money to pay for what people want and need.
“There is a direct tangible benefit that is derived from property taxes evidenced by the time you leave your front door,” Adam Reichbach, assistant city manager in Hollywood and president of the Broward County City Managers’ Association, recently told lawmakers.
“This includes the conditions of our roadways that we drive on, the sidewalks that we walk on, the parks that we play at, and the safety and security we feel by the presence of our police and firefighters,” Reichbach said.
Property taxes go to local governments’ general fund budgets. It’s those general funds that pay for police, parks and many other programs and services.
In Broward’s 31 cities, Reichbach said 48% of general fund money comes from property tax revenue.
And, he said, the “largest and most expensive element” is police and fire services. More than half of municipal general fund budgets in Broward goes to public safety, including police, fire-rescue, beach lifeguards in coastal cities, school resource officers and crossing guards.
Denise Horland, a member of the Plantation City Council and president of the Broward League of Cities, said her city brought in about $78 million in property taxes in 2025 and spent $70 million on public safety.
LaMarca and Cassel said their party’s proposals would prevent reductions to public safety spending. “We’re staying away from the ability to remove funds from public safety because that is a top priority for the state,” Cassel said.
But Broward County Commissioner Steve Geller, a former Florida Senate Democratic leader, said law enforcement and other public safety spending is such a big share of general fund budgets that it would be impossible to protect them.
He said property tax reductions of the kind that are being talked about effectively amount to defunding the police, which he opposes.
The value of owner-occupied residential property (called “homesteaded”) makes up 36% of the taxable value of property in the state, according to a state Department of Revenue analysis.
Eliminating all property taxes on homesteaded property could reduce Palm Beach County government’s revenue by $600 million, Alessandro Marchesani, the county’s legislative affairs director, recently told county commissioners.
Broward County Administrator Monica Cepero told county commissioners and local legislators recently that a preliminary estimate put the lost revenue to county government from one of the House proposals at $100 million. “That’s the least impactful one so far,” Cepero said. “So it’s going to be very painful.”
Bartleman and Geller said the state doesn’t have the kind of money it would take to make up for the lost revenue from property taxes.
An example of what that could entail: State Sen. Don Gaetz, a Republican former Florida Senate president, said at the most recent Finance and Tax Committee hearing that the panel’s professional staff estimated that replacing all the property tax money that’s currently raised would require the state sales tax to increase from 6% to 8.8%.
(Voters in some places, including Broward and Palm Beach counties, have previously approved a 1% local sales tax, which brings the total current rate to 7%.)
Increasing the sales tax or shifting the property tax to other owners would be unfair, said state Sen. Rosalind Osgood, a Broward Democrat and former School Board member. Increasing other property taxes could end up increasing rents, she said.
Next steps
Beyond broad declarations of intent to do something, just what may happen is unclear.
One factor is discord among Republicans, with the governor labeling the proposals put forth by the House of Representatives as “all milquetoast. There’s not one proposal that people would get excited about, not one. So they’re total half measures, which is not what people are asking for. People want to be bold.”
DeSantis said he plans to propose his own plan, at some point. Even though he’s been talking about dramatic tax cuts for most of 2025, he said late last month there’s no urgency to unveil details.
Staff writer Abigail Hasebroock contributed to this report.
Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
Alice J. Roden started working for Trending Insurance News at the end of 2021. Alice grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. A writer with a vast insurance industry background Alice has help with several of the biggest insurance companies. Before joining Trending Insurance News, Alice briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers home, renters and other property insurance stories.