The governor wants lower or no property tax, but has OK’d state budgets that rely on boosted property tax revenue.
Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia says property taxes have soared too much
Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia says in Jacksonville that local governments should cut tax rates because property taxes have soared
- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has criticized local governments for increasing property taxes alongside rising home values, but has also signed state budgets that benefit from the same increased revenue.
- DeSantis proposed a plan to cut taxes for homestead properties and provide rebates to homeowners, but the plan was not implemented.
- DeSantis is now pushing for a large property tax cut to be on the 2026 ballot, raising concerns among Democrats about the impact on local government budgets.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in recent months has zeroed in on local governments throughout the state, criticizing some for approving large increases in property taxes in recent years as home values have risen.
“What happens is your property gets assessed higher and higher. It’s an unrealized gain. You haven’t sold it for that much; they’re just telling you it’s worth that much,” DeSantis said Aug. 12 at an event in Tampa.
“And guess what happens when the market corrects – which it inevitably does? Do they rush in to assess your property at a lower level? Not that I’m aware of. So it’s a one way ratchet, and you basically get stuck paying higher taxes.”
Residents can get stuck paying more property tax even if local governments keep their tax rates the same: A boost in a home’s value means a higher assessed value to tax, which results in a bigger bill.
DeSantis has also sent personnel from his Department of Government Efficiency to review the spending of several cities and counties, looking for any waste, fraud or abuse that’s caused a bloat in their budgets.
But he’s also signed state budgets into law that rely on boosted property tax revenue due to higher property values since he’s taken office.
State requires ‘local effort’: Dollars from local governments
The first budget DeSantis approved included $7.9 billion for the portion of property taxes used to pay for K-12 schools, known as the required local effort (RLE).
The RLE is set by legislators each year in the state budget, and local governments must generate the revenue through property taxes. The current budget has $10.9 billion for the RLE, or $3 billion more.
Some of the additional revenue comes from taxes applied to new construction, not just increased property values of existing structures.
And while county-level property tax rates for the RLE vary by year, the statewide average RLE rate has dropped from $4.075 in tax for every $1,000 of assessed value the year before DeSantis took office to $3.189 last year.
That rate, though, is still higher than what’s known as the ‘rollback rate’ – the rate needed to get the same amount of revenue as the prior year. A spokesperson for DeSantis didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.
Whether to require local governments to collect more property taxes for schools has been a major flashpoint in budget debates among Republican lawmakers in recent years, with some GOP leaders arguing any increase in RLE revenue outside of new construction was a tax increase.
In 2018, then-House Speaker Richard Corcoran insisted the education budget not rely on an increase in property tax revenues from local governments. Anything more would constitute a tax increase, he said.
“No matter where you go, ask any single individual, any community, any city, any county, and they will tell you it’s a tax increase. It’s a tax increase any time government takes more money from you this year than they took last year and it was through no account of your own,” Corcoran said in January 2018.
But Florida Senate leaders and then-Gov. Rick Scott didn’t think the higher property tax revenues were a tax increase if the rate remained the same. The House and Senate eventually agreed to allow for higher revenues due to new construction, but in subsequent years GOP leaders have approved budgets reliant on a hike in property values.
DeSantis later backed Corcoran to be Education Commissioner and president of New College of Florida. In his budget recommendations to the Legislature each year, DeSantis hasn’t proposed reducing the RLE or keeping it level.
DeSantis proposal would have boosted home rebates
On March 31, however, he released a plan to cut back the taxes for homestead properties, using state money to backfill the money for schools and requiring local governments to give rebates to eligible homeowners. The rebates would have averaged $1,000 per homestead owner. The plan never went anywhere.
After an extended session this year, during which DeSantis slammed House Speaker Daniel Perez’s plan to cut the overall sales tax rate, DeSantis now is keen to ensure lawmakers next year put a large property tax cut on the November 2026 ballot.
The details of the measure will be determined during the next legislative session, which starts in January. Democrats, though, are wary of the effect any major cut will have on the budgets of cities and counties.
Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami, noted the discrepancy in DeSantis’ approach to local governments and to the part of property taxes over which the state has control.
“The state cannot say ‘rules for thee and not for me,’ ” Jones said. “You’re telling the cities and counties to be responsible with Floridians’ money and we’re not doing that.”
He said even a property tax cut limited to homestead properties will lead local governments to cut vital services or hike fees or other taxes.
“It sounds appealing on the surface but it will still gut school budgets. It will still slash public safety funding and it will still drive up costs in other ways,” Jones said. “Homestead properties make up a huge share of the property tax base and eliminating those taxes will strip billions from local budgets.”
Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer.