Amendment 3: pros and cons

In our You Decide coverage today, a proposed amendment could mean some big property tax savings for homeowners here in Florida. We're talking, of course, Amendment 3. It would increase the homestead exemption from $50,000 up to $250,000 by the year 2028. But, of course, it could also cut revenue for local governments. And I'm sure everyone is thoroughly confused at this point after seeing all the ads. So let's bring in Kelly Smith. She's an associate professor at Stetson University. Always good to see you, Kelly. Thanks for making time for us today. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, these ads, I mean, even those of us in the news business we're like, what? So let's start with the basics here. What would this amendment change for Florida homeowners, first of all? Right, so the first thing that it will do is it will reduce property taxes up to a certain level of your home. At the same time, because localities rely on property taxes to fund local government, it will also potentially cut their revenues okay so when you see these ads i mean they're all over the place right now so we do know it's going to cut property taxes but it's not going to eliminate them that's correct that was one of the discussions uh in the spring was to just eliminate property taxes altogether that proposal did not gain enough traction so this is a little bit of a watered down proposal to cut all property taxes so it reduces property taxes up to a certain level of your home So it might not affect all Floridians, but it will lower the property tax rate or the property taxes for a good chunk of Floridians in the state. OK, so that's what we've got to be careful on. By the way, there is a website. People can search for this. How much would impact you? You plug in the value of your home. It tells you, independent source there, it tells you exactly what it would cost, OK, or save you in this case. But then also on the other side of this one, Kelly, we see the ads now saying that, you know, it's going to decimate police departments, going to decimate fire departments. so what's the truth on that what's it going to do here there are some estimates that this will cost about 12 billion dollars throughout the state localities rely on property tax revenues to fund local government so local governments will have two options right if they take in less money they can either reduce services reduce the expenditures that they have to pay out or try to raise taxes another way to make up for that lost revenue so each county each city might approach this differently. If Amendment 3 passes, you might see different strategies for how to cut down on expenditures. So it's really difficult to give an assessment of what exactly will happen because each locality, each city is going to have to make those decisions for themselves. But they will definitely be taking in less of property taxes. And so they're going to have to figure out some way to adjust to that new reality. You know, Kelly, I spent time yesterday looking over the ballot language for one two and three there's three amendments of course and if you are waiting to read it until you get into the ballot you're going to be confused because it's it's deep so what's the most important thing that people need to understand about amendment three right the most important thing you want to know about amendment three is that it is a proposal to reduce property taxes it will lower your property tax bill however at the same time it will likely reduce expenditures for local government and there might be consequences to that So you want to think through, right, what you would prefer to see in the state of Florida. Read ahead. Kelly Smith, associate professor at Stetson. Always good to see you, Kelly. Appreciate your time today. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for having me.