The property tax payment has become a real source of financial strain in the older Pinellas County subdivisions and the Coral Springs and Cape Coral areas, where homes that sold for $190,000 ten years ago are now assessed at $480,000. It appears in the mail twice a year, and in recent years it has increased due to assessed values rising at a rate that many long-time residents honestly did not expect when they purchased their homes.
The fact that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis summoned a special legislative session for June 1–3, 2026, and pushed through a constitutional amendment that would more than triple the homestead exemption for non-school property taxes was a clear indication of this frustration. It was approved by the legislature. It will now go to Florida voters in November, where it must receive 60% of the vote to become law. It’s not an easy threshold.
Before the campaign advertising starts to simplify the mechanics of the amendment, it is important to understand how they are specific. Two exemptions are currently available to Florida residents who utilize a property as their primary residence: an additional $25,000 is exempt from non-school taxes only, and the first $25,000 of assessed value is exempt from all property taxes, including school levies. The non-school share would increase to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028 under the proposed change.
Due to a floor amendment by Representative Sam Garrison that addressed the most serious objections from education advocates, school taxes, which account for a sizable amount of the overall property tax burden for the majority of Florida homeowners, are purposefully left out of the enlarged exemption. When the exemption was first proposed, DeSantis wanted it to apply to all property taxes, including school levies. Though it is still a significant change by any historical standard, the final form that was approved is much more modest than that initial concept.
The discussion becomes complex when it comes to the cost estimate. According to a House staff study, the proposal would initially cut annual revenue to non-school governments (counties, cities, and special districts, not school boards) by $4.6 billion. As the greater exemption fully takes effect, that amount would rise to $8.4 billion annually. These figures are significant in comparison to the operational budgets of Florida’s communities, many of which rely nearly exclusively on property tax revenue to pay for services like building inspections, parks, road maintenance, and fire rescue.
Local government associations, firefighter unions, and a number of Democratic lawmakers are among the opponents of the amendment who contend that the lost revenue won’t just vanish but will instead be recovered through higher service fees, fewer services, or local governments looking for alternative taxation authority. The amendment does not contain a mechanism that would require the state to make up for any losses incurred by local governments.
Many supporters contend that the goal is to compel municipal governments to reduce their spending. Blaise Ingoglia, the CFO of Florida, has been outspoken against what he considers to be excess in local government budgets, characterizing people as irritated by organizations “crying poor” while continuing to spend. Depending on your preferred legal interpretation, the amendment also limits the use of leftover property tax funds to essential government services. This is either an unlawful incursion on local government authority or a necessary accountability measure. If the change is approved, the latter question will probably result in legal action.
This is truly questionable because of the 60 percent criterion. Campaigns for constitutional amendments in Florida have recently struggled to reach that threshold; the 2024 abortion rights proposal received 57 percent, tantalizingly near but ultimately below the cutoff. A rights question is not the same as a tax relief for homeowners, and the phrase “saving homes from excessive property taxes” may elicit the kind of widespread, fervent support that approaches 60%.
Additionally, new homeowners learning about the five-year residency requirement to obtain the full benefit and fire departments and first responders arguing about what gets eliminated could influence the outcome in different ways. There are still months left in the campaign. For the time being, the figures belong to the city budget managers and economists who are conducting calculations that the majority of voters won’t see until after November.
