TALLAHASSEE --- Local-government officials Tuesday offered some pushback against state efforts to cut property taxes and question city and county spending.
With a Florida House panel finishing a two-day review of property-tax issues, city and county officials defended their financial management amid Gov. Ron DeSantis’ push to ask voters next year to slash taxes on homesteaded properties.
Casey Cook, chief of legislative affairs for the Florida League of Cities, called local governments “the most transparent forms of government in the state,” as municipal officials hear daily from neighbors expecting higher levels of service than what is provided in unincorporated areas.
As an example, Cook pointed to street sweepers that some people might see as waste daily cleaning streets, but they are removing trash that could clog storm drains and result in flooding.
“Nobody likes paying taxes, but safety isn't free. Clean isn't free,” Cook told members of the House Select Committee on Property Taxes. “Those taxes pay the police officers. They pay the firefighters. They pay the parks and rec employees. They pay for the new swing sets at the parks.”
Bay County Manager Bob Majka said local government officials consider tax dollars their responsibility.
“We're fiscally responsible for this. Our employees pay it. Our neighbors pay it. We take our responsibility very seriously,” Majka said. “But it does come down to what services does the public want and the level expected. That's where rubber meets the road.”
But lawmakers pointed to concerns about the bottom line.
Committee Co-Chairman Toby Overdorf, R-Palm City, said after the meeting that “we just heard, (there are) 411 municipalities in 67 counties, and we're not seeing revenue go down at all. If anything, it continues to go up. Where is that money going?”
Co-Chairwoman Vicki Lopez, R-Miami, summed up the two days of presentations on property taxes and spending as learning “maybe there are some counties and cities that are doing it right, and maybe there are counties and cities that need a little help in reducing their expenses.”
“We're educating, obviously, committee members,” Lopez said. “But hopefully the public is listening to what that would mean in terms of reduction of any kind of revenue in their communities.”
On Monday, Lopez suggested some small towns might cease to exist if they can’t maintain existing services with lower budgets.
The committee is weeks away from crafting proposals for the 2026 legislative session. But Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton, said it appears that many lawmakers on the committee already had their minds made up.
“We sit up here, we tell local governments what they can and cannot do,” Skidmore said. “We take their authority away through more preemption than I've ever seen in the 30 years I've been in this process, and now we're telling them that they don't know how to manage their budgets and they don't know how to provide the services for their local communities.”
Rep. Ryan Chamberlin, R-Belleview, pitched a plan that initially would direct counties to roll back tax rates to the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
“I do believe we have a spending problem across the state, in most counties,” Chamberlin said. “I say that for this reason. We have had, on average, a 45 percent increase over the last five years in our property taxes in the state. That is an abnormal increase. That is not normal.”
But Winter Haven City Manager T. Michael Stavres said the issue becomes paying for services with less revenue.
“So, how do you either eliminate those costs or find some other means to provide for them,” Stavres said. “I think it becomes somewhat of a tax shift.”
Port St. Lucie Financial Director Stephen Okiye said over the past decade the city has cut its tax rate by 25 percent, while increasing law enforcement and investing heavily in roads and drainage.
“Our residents trust us to invest their dollars wisely, and we deliver because we're right there with them,” Okiye said.
Rep. Judson Sapp, R-Green Cove Springs, countered that most people don’t have a choice on where they live, settling where they work or based on housing affordability.
Property taxes are expected to be a major issue during the legislative session that will start in January. DeSantis wants lawmakers to approve a tax-cutting plan that would go on the November 2026 ballot.
Meanwhile, DeSantis and state Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia have been raising questions about local-government spending in some parts of the state. The Florida Department of Government Efficiency has looked at spending in Alachua, Broward, Hillsborough, Manatee, Orange, Palm Beach and Pinellas counties and in Gainesville, Jacksonville, Orlando, Pensacola and St. Petersburg.
Leda Kelly, who is with the Department of Government Efficiency, told the House committee officials are looking for waste and fraud, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, inappropriate public-sector perks, mismanagement of spending, and redundant government functions.
“It needs to come back to the question of, are the services and goods being provided, being paid for (with) taxpayer dollars, truly what those locals want, truly what those citizens want? And it may differ county by county,” Kelly said.
