Florida voters on Tuesday are on track to approve Amendment 3, a sweeping property tax cut. Now the state’s cities, counties and hospital districts are on the hook to figure out how to pay for it.

The measure’s backers sold it to Floridians facing an affordability crisis as a tax cut, but some tax and policy experts across the state have called it “a tax shift,” that will move the bill for public services to local fees, commercial property and other non-ad-valorem taxes. It will also shift more power from local officials to Tallahassee lawmakers and the governor.

Amendment 3 has cleared the 60% threshold it needed with over 95% of the vote in. It raises the homestead exemption on non-school property taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. Economists estimate the amendment would cut local property tax revenue by $4.9 billion in its first year, growing to $11.8 billion by 2031.  

The ballot initiative included language that dictates how remaining property tax revenue should be spent by counties and municipalities. But those provisions — including those for police, fire departments and emergency medical services — don’t guarantee the funding or stipulate where it will come from, one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the measure, former Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes told The Florida Trib on election night. Even supporters of the initiative, such as the Florida Realtors Association, have conceded as much, suggesting that the Legislature will need to add guidance that offers firmer protections. 

That uncertainty is what sheriffs and firefighters warned about throughout the campaign. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a vocal opponent to Amendment 3, has said it’s “the wrong solution to the right problem,” and if it passes “we’re going to put some towns and some cities out of business.”

Public safety is the largest budget item for many counties, taking about 85 cents of every property tax dollar, according to the Florida Association of Counties. A 2025 Florida League of Cities analysis found police, fire and EMS spending exceeds all property tax revenue in at least 176 cities, and that 85 cities could not fund public safety at current levels under a $250,000 exemption. 

What happens next

The first effects will arrive in the 2027 tax year, but it will be unclear exactly what the cuts will look like for several years, said Holly Bullard, chief strategy and development office for The Florida Policy Institute.

Local governments have three options, said Jared Walczak, a senior fellow at the Tax Foundation: cut spending, raise rates on remaining taxable property, or raise other taxes and fees. They will probably do some of all three, he said, and state revenue limits give them a reason to raise rates now, because when collections fall, the lower figure becomes the baseline for future rate changes.

The Legislature could shape the answer, by “setting a uniform procedure” for counties and cities to raise exemptions further, and it could add guidance on how local governments spend what remains. The Legislature will have to make up the difference, said Brandes, who is president of The Florida Policy Project, and it will take an “incredible effort” to keep counties from failing. Cities can fail, he said, but counties cannot, because they are responsible for law enforcement and fire protection whether or not the amendment protects that funding. 

The case for it

Supporters say the cut is overdue. Florida Realtors called the measure “first and foremost an affordability measure” as statewide property tax collections reached about $59.1 billion in 2025, nearly 75% more than in 2019, according to WLRN, and backers argue that growth gives local governments room to absorb a cut. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis, who campaigned for more than a year to cut property taxes, supported the amendment. Republican gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds has said local governments should spend first on law enforcement, fire and emergency personnel. Whether that happens is up to each local government.

Who feels it most

The effect will vary sharply, even between neighboring counties. Brandes said two adjacent counties could lose 8% and 20% of their revenue, depending on their mix of commercial and residential property. By his figures, about half of homes in Pinellas County and 70% in the Pensacola area fall below the $250,000 exemption, and in Bowling Green, in Hardee County, only about 20 homes would still owe property tax.

Homeowners could also be surprised by their bills, he said. People will see higher fire assessments and transportation fees, he said, that “cost more than a Spirit Airlines ticket.” Renters get no direct benefit, he said, and the burden could shift to apartments, commercial property and non-ad valorem charges.

Walczak said the measure follows Save Our Homes, which he called a “dramatic tax shift away from longtime homeowners onto newer owners.” Newer buyers face very high property taxes in Florida, he said, and now they are looking for relief. “It reshuffles the property tax again,” he said, and could undermine affordability by making newer homes and new construction less affordable.

Beyond police and fire

The cut will also reach public health, but no one knows how yet. Florida has 28 hospital districts that provide a safety net for individuals and families who don’t qualify for Medicaid but don’t earn enough to afford private insurance. Each district is created by its own special act with its own board and funding rules, and 11 rely on property taxes for the bulk of their budgets. Four, including Baker County’s, get 95% or more of their revenue from property taxes, and the Florida Policy Institute estimates public hospital districts and health systems could lose about $323 million in the amendment’s first few years. 

In Indian River County, the district could lose about a third of its tax money, which could mean roughly 10,000 fewer people served, district leaders say. Elsewhere the safety net is thinner: 41 counties, home to 46% of the state’s population, have neither a hospital district nor a health care sales tax. Who decides where to cut is just as uneven, since boards are elected in some counties, appointed by county commissions in others and appointed by the governor in many.

What’s still unknown

Most of what happens next depends on choices that have not been made yet: how the Legislature writes the implementing rules, how each county and city sets its tax rates, and which services get cut first.

There is little precedent to predict the outcome, Walczak said. The closest parallel is California’s Proposition 13 in the late 1970s. He called this the biggest move Florida has made since Save Our Homes in the early 1990s and one of the most significant property tax changes nationwide in decades. “Florida is running an experiment,” he said.

Brandes described the way the measure reached the ballot “legislative malpractice,” arguing that lawmakers voted on it without the data and models that would have made it hard to support. 

“I’m all for a tax cut,” he said, “but not like this.” 

The risks are real even though voters are responding to an affordability pinch, Bullard said. It is now up to local and state officials and the new governor to understand the impact on police, fire departments, rural hospitals and other services, she said, and to find the political will to raise revenue that fills the gap without harming everyday Floridians. She called it “a profound conundrum,” “not insurmountable, but not politically easy to do.”

“It’s an understandable response to an affordability crisis,” she said. “But we’re going to have to have a broader conversation about how to not create a broader affordability crisis.”