Why I Support Amendment 3

I have thought long and hard about Amendment 3, commonly referred to as “Save Our Homes From Excessive Property Taxes”. The more formal name is Florida Amendment 3, Homestead Tax Exemptions, Property Assessments, and Spending Restrictions Amendment (2026).

The actual language of the amendment is being rewritten as we speak after Leon County Circuit Judge David Frank found the current ballot title – the aforementioned “Save Our Homes From Excessive Property Taxes” – and the summary to be political slogans rather than neutral descriptions. No matter how the final name and descriptive summary read, the amendment’s provisions remain unchanged.

A "yes" vote supports this constitutional amendment to:

• increase the homestead tax exemption for non-school taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, with the amount indexed to inflation starting in 2029;

• provide that new residents receive a smaller exemption until they've lived in the state for five years;

• decrease the cap on how much the assessed value of non-homestead properties, such as rentals and commercial buildings, can increase each year from 10% to 5%, except for school district taxes;

• limit how counties and municipalities can spend property tax revenue on public safety, education, infrastructure, natural resource projects and flood control, local bonds, employee retirement benefits, and government operations; and other changes.

Amendment proponents say that homeowners desperately need property tax relief because of soaring home values that have outpaced incomes. Opponents of Amendment 3 feel that it has been rushed through without adequate thought being given to its potential ramifications, particularly how counties and municipalities will make up the shortfall resulting from the reduction in state property tax revenues.

Both sides have valid points, so why do I intend to vote “Yes” on November 3rd?

First, as the old saying goes, “perfect is the enemy of good”. In other words, if we continue to wait for the Florida state legislature to come up with a perfect solution for property tax relief, we could be waiting a very, very long time. After all, our elected officials have been wrestling with this issue for decades with minimal results. I, for one, want to see property taxes reduced in my lifetime… and at age 66, I’m not interested in giving the folks in Tallahassee 10 or 20 more years to debate and discuss the issue. No more kicking the can down the road for next year’s session to deal with – and then the one after that.

As my father used to say, it’s time to fish or cut bait.

If Amendment 3 is adopted, the Florida legislature can always pass laws to correct any unforeseen circumstances, so let’s get this ball rolling now and make adjustments - such as providing much needed relief for renters - later as needed.

Second, I am a smaller government, lower taxes, fiscal conservative just like Ronald Reagan, my political hero. In my humble opinion, the more we can shrink the size of government on the federal, state, and local levels… the better.

Adopting Amendment 3 will reduce property tax revenues and SHOULD therefore, reduce the size of government. As the “Gipper” told a Joint Session of Congress on April 28, 1981, “The answer to a government that’s too big is to stop feeding its growth.”

Which brings me to my third and most important (and potentially contentious) point.

The fearmongers are actively wringing their hands and warning everybody that because of the anticipated loss in revenue, local governments will have to dramatically reduce critical services. School taxes are exempt under Amendment 3, so public school systems should not be affected. However, police and fire unions are working hard to defeat Amendment 3 for fear that there will be job cuts if it passes. Meanwhile, county officials are putting voters on notice to expect local tax increases if they want to maintain the same level of services.

To me, everyone seems to be working off a false assumption. I remember all too well when, on September 25, 2013, then House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was asked by host Candy Crowley on State of the Union why President Obama and the Democrats in Congress were so opposed to negotiating over the debt ceiling by exploring additional spending cuts.

Pelosi infamously and arrogantly stated that “the cupboard is bare…there’s no more cuts to make.” Really, Nancy? Not a single dollar could be cut from a (then) $3.8 trillion federal budget to narrow the $901 billion deficit?

Truth be told, Republicans are just as guilty and just as clueless. In 2005, when the federal budget was “just” $2.5 trillion and the deficit was “only” $318 billion, House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas) claimed that there was “no fat” left to cut in the federal budget and agreed with the assessment that the government was running at peak efficiency, bragging that the GOP majority had “pared it down pretty good.”

Give me a break, Tom.

I don’t know what the budget is in Florida’s other 66 counties, but in Indian River County, the proposed budget for FY2026-2027 is $614.8 million. That’s a lot of money for a county with just 173,000 residents. In fact, it comes to $3,554 per county resident, almost double the statewide average of $1,814 and more than twice the state median of $1,601.

So please, don’t tell me there’s no fat in the budget or no cuts that can be made without reducing critical services or laying off first responders.

Let me give you a personal example to prove what I have been saying…

I founded two different nonprofit organizations and led them both for a combined 39 years. They both started with a zero budget and eventually grew to $600,000 and $130,000 respectively. The former had 11 employees at its peak, and the latter currently has one full-time and two part-time workers. If I told you everything that God accomplished in and through these two ministries on such relatively small budgets and will such relatively small staffs, you’d be amazed. And yet, I am sure I could go back and cut a nonessential program here and eliminate an unnecessary expenditure there without compromising either ministry’s mission or diminishing its overall effectiveness.

If I can do that in the nonprofit sector where pinching pennies is an art form as well as a means of survival, I am confident that our elected officials in IRC and throughout the State of Florida are competent enough to do the same.

(For my readers outside of Florida, the lessons of Amendment 3 still apply to your state and your local jurisdictions.  As Henry David Thoreau famously wrote, "That government is best which governs least.")