Join us for a robust conversation about Amendment 3 and Florida’s property tax shift. Who gets the tax cut? Who picks up the tab? And what happens to your city when the math no longer works?

Florida has 411 cities, towns and villages. Roughly 60% have fewer than 10,000 residents. The median Florida municipality has about 6,500 people. That raises a question Florida has not seriously considered: What is the minimum viable city? As Amendment 3 approaches, local governments are answering it in real time through fire assessments, EMS fees, garbage fees, stormwater fees, park fees, parking charges, fuel taxes and public service taxes. The property tax bill may shrink, but the receipt grows longer. Every city has fixed costs that remain when property-tax revenue falls: police and fire, roads and stormwater, pensions, debt, insurance, buildings, technology and basic administration. Scale matters. A city of 5,000 still needs many basic functions of a city of 100,000, yet has far fewer taxpayers to share the costs. When the math stops working, cities first raise fees, then create assessments, then cut services, then contract them to the county or a neighboring city. Eventually comes the question no one wants to ask: Does this city still make economic sense as an independent government? Florida’s municipalities range from its largest cities to places like Marineland, with only a handful of residents. Yet Amendment 3 applies essentially the same constitutional formula to all of them. Some cities will adapt. Some will raise fees. Some will cut services. Some will increasingly rely on their counties. And some may ultimately consolidate or disincorporate. Florida may need a Minimum Viable City stress test: taxable value per resident, homestead concentration, infrastructure age, debt and pension obligations, fixed costs and projected Amendment 3 losses. When six out of ten Florida municipalities have fewer than 10,000 residents, this is not a fringe issue. It is structural. If we permanently change the economics of local government, we should first understand what makes a municipality financially viable. Florida should not discover the minimum viable city by waiting for the first ones to fail and watching their obligations, services and costs spill across borders to everyone else.

Today, the court drew a line. The ballot box is not a place for political advertising. This case was never about whether property taxes should be lower. It was about whether the government can MARKET a constitutional amendment instead of HONESTLY explaining it to voters. The court said NO. No matter how you feel about Amendment 3, every Floridian should agree on one principle. Ballot language should inform voters, not persuade them. Facts, not slogans. Truth, not marketing. The debate over property taxes will continue, as it should. But from this point forward, that debate should be based on an honest description of what’s actually in the amendment. Today wasn’t just a win for the plaintiffs. It was a win for every Florida voter.

Florida may be walking into a perfect storm. Housing inventories are surging. Price cuts are accelerating. Home values are coming under pressure. Now we’re proposing to permanently shrink the local tax base. Cities and counties are squeezed from both ends. I’m confident the Governor’s office and Legislature modeled this predictable scenario before asking Floridians to amend the Constitution. If they did, they should release it. If they didn’t,…that’s an even bigger story.

Bonus question: Where is the sunset clause? This proposal would fundamentally restructure local government finance in the third-largest state in America. So where is the mandatory five-year review? Measure homeowner savings, renter impacts, debt stress, infrastructure quality, public safety, and unintended consequences. Big reforms need an exit ramp if the theory fails.

10. Does this proposal reduce the cost of government or simply change the collection mechanism? Nothing in the proposal prevents governments from relying more heavily on utility fees, stormwater charges, mobility fees, special assessments, franchise fees, or special districts. If the total cost to taxpayers remains roughly the same, this is not necessarily smaller government. It is simply a different billing system.

🧵Ten questions Florida should answer before detonating the property tax system: 1. If this is real tax reform, what replaces it? Florida built local government around property taxes because Florida has no state income tax. You can dislike the system, but you cannot remove the load-bearing wall without explaining what keeps the roof from collapsing afterward.

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The hard truth about Florida condos: some buildings and tragically some residents’ life savings are beyond saving. Pouring resources into unsalvageable properties delays the inevitable and takes away from those that can still be saved. Tough decisions! floridatoday.com/story/opini…

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