Joe Tincher

There's something about Florida's new property tax amendment that I don't think has gotten nearly enough attention. Not every county in Florida experienced the same housing boom. Think about the smaller, rural counties where a $180,000 house is still a pretty nice home. Places that don't have millions of tourists, luxury beachfront condos or enormous shopping centers generating tax revenue. Those counties still have bills to pay. They need sheriff's deputies, ambulances, firefighters, roads and schools, just like Palm Beach County or Miami-Dade. And a fire truck doesn't cost less because you're in rural Florida. Under Amendment 3, by 2028, qualifying homeowners won't pay non-school property taxes on the first $250,000 of their home's assessed value. In some rural counties, that could eliminate those taxes on most owner-occupied homes. Now think about what that does to a small county that already struggles to pay its bills. You can argue that Florida governments have gotten too big, and there's certainly room to question how they've spent the additional money collected during the housing boom. But what about the counties that never saw that kind of windfall? You can't cut 25% of a sheriff's department that was already struggling to cover hundreds of square miles without somebody noticing. Governor DeSantis has promised help for rural counties, but that funding still needs legislative approval. And that's going to matter. Because the Florida where people own million-dollar homes and the Florida where people work their entire lives to afford a $180,000 home are two very different places. Amendment 3 applies to both. The consequences won't necessarily be the same.