My county even though it’s red as heck wanted to put a five cent gas tax in 2025 but they tabled it for another time. I am sure they’re gonna go fullbore on it in 2027 especially with this proposition three passing. heck they might even go more than five cents now. yes it’s Lake County.
Here is what I would support, I did some research and if the State of Florida passed a 1 cent sales tax increase which would shift the tax burden from property owners more toward snowbirds and tourists, the increase would generate 7.5 to 8 billion dollars per year.
Take that money, pass a law that prorated the money to the counties and cities, and it would nearly cover all the lost revenue from property taxes.
The other thing cities and counties should do is consolidate services, for example combine city and county police forces into one department, city police forces should be consolidated into country Sheriff’s departments, especially in small cities that have 10-15 cops or less, take those 10-15 cops and make them sheriffs and eliminate the administrative overhead of city police departments.
The great thing about Amendment 3 is it will force cities and counties to make some hard decisions about how to spend the tax money coming in, some will ace this decision some will screw it up and then we will know who the fake politicians really are.
Just to show out of control property taxes have gotten in Florida.
At one time, my wife and I owned 3 properties, our main house in Jacksonville, a vacation condo in Putnam county, and we owned an office condo that my wife ran her law practice from, she was an attorney.
Our property taxes for 3 properties were $10,000 per year.
When my wife retired, we sold her office condo.
We just got our property tax bills for our main house and our vacation condo in Putnam County
We are now paying $11,000 per year in property taxes for 2 properties when 5 years ago we were paying $10,000 for 3 properties.
The small single stop light town where we own our vacation condo has 500 residents, they have a 5-man police force for 500 people, all five cops have brand new Ford F-150 Police Vehicles, plus all the latest kit in terms of vest, guns, radios, etc., all because the small town has a gusher of money coming in from rising property taxes.
Speaking of Lake County ...
I have a friend who just cited for passing a school bus.
He’s 71.
He was in transit in a four lane highway US50. He was next to the bus that started flashing yellow. Then while both car and bus side-by-side the red sign came out. What’s a driver to do then, he proceeded to let bus slow down as he continued past it.
Was he supposed to slam on brakes and stop in middle of a four-lane highway ?
Cop was right behind him. Some $350 ticket. Cops told him he has camera footage of the whole incident. That should fix it in court.
He now has to go through all sorts of prep to challenge ticket.