Ever since DeSantis came out with his proposal to virtually eliminate property taxes, by social media feeds have been absolutely overrun with people screaming about how towns will go bankrupt and have to shut down police, fire, and roads. It is so pervasive and widespread, it’s like a chorus. They are also being misleading.
I want to use my town as an example. For a reminder on how Florida does property taxes, you can read this old post from a year ago. Where I live is a town with 3500 people living in about 900 households. Our only commercial property consists of a convenience store and a single diner. Of those households, nearly a quarter of them (18%) pay less than $200 a year in non-school taxes.
Town revenue breaks down like this:
- 29% of revenue is from ad valorem taxes, with almost half of it (14% of the total revenue) being from ad valorem taxes on homestead property.
- 29% of revenue comes from fees for services (fees for water, sewer, trash, and other city services)
- 20% from state and federal funding
- 10% from shared taxes with the county
- 10% from utility taxes
- 2% miscellaneous sources
Keep in mind that the town LOVES my neighborhood, because the people in it comprise only 1/10 of the town’s population, but pay about 25% of all ad valorem taxes. Another 18% pay nothing, or nearly so. The governor’s plan would increase homestead exemptions to $250,000 (from $50,000 currently) in the first year, then to $500,000 the second year, meaning no one would pay taxes on any home until its value was more than $500,000, except for school taxes, which would remain unaffected. A complete loss of ad valorem taxes on homestead property would mean the city would face a loss of 14% of their revenues. What would have to be cut? Let’s look at the town budget. This is where the town budget goes:
- 33% to the Police department
- 29% to Administration, Finance, Legal, Legislative, and Planning
- 22% to Public Works and solid waste
- 10% to the library
- 2% to Code Enforcement
- 3% to Historical Preservation, Cemetaries, and Special Events
- 1% to parks and recreation
It seems to me that the town is pretty top heavy in administration, the library is an extravagance, and I would argue that a town of 3500 people doesn’t need 15 police officers. I would cut the library, and I would cut the police and admin budgets by 10% each. That takes care of most of the cuts you need right there.
- Will a small town with almost zero crime miss a single cop being cut from the budget? Likely not.
- Likewise, the library just isn’t as important as it used to be in the age of the Internet. Certainly not important enough to take money from residents, and taking the homes of those who won’t pay.
- and seriously, a third of the city budget being administrative overhead?
The town has 50 employees, with 15 being law enforcement officers. Granted, 20 of the town’s employees are seasonal or part time, but that seems like a heavy dead load for a town of 3500, where a fifth of them aren’t paying any taxes at all.
Since 2020, the town’s total revenue has increased 250%, but the population has only increased by 6%.
Losing ad valorem taxes on homestead property isn’t just doable, it’s the only way to curb the bloat. Towns are treating these massive windfalls from taxation like a teenager who just found his dad’s credit cards.
7 Comments
Steve · May 30, 2026 at 10:39 am
I live several miles out of the same kind of town. When I first moved here during Clinton, there was one part-time constable, who was also the full-time barber. There are now 22 officers, each of whom has to have the latest model SUV, and they are doing officer stuff. You know, hassling family reunions at the park who are still there 15 minutes after it “closes”. Radar traps and zero tolerance in a town with only one street that has a speed limit over 20. Most every ticket is 22 in a 20 or thereabouts.
Our library used to be among the best I’ve ever seen, filled with donations from several private libraries, so lots dating back to the early 1800s. The new librarian decided all the old stuff had to go, and threw all that history into a dumpster. The only things that survived were the few that had been checked out at the time. Now we have the whole LGBT+ thing going, even/especially in the kids section, and what used to be the biography section are a dozen public access computers, most of which are playing TikTok videos every hour they are open.
School enrollment is down about 30%, teaching staff slightly more than doubled, admin up from 2 to, I don’t know, maybe 20.
Administrative bloat. Exorbitant fees for services. The only department that is still more or less the same is the streets and parks. Still just the one guy, the son of the guy who ran it when we moved here, who does all the work himself with a 150HP tractor and the various attachments.
Taxes are just an excuse to grow the parasite class.
Ralph · May 30, 2026 at 3:00 pm
Nothing will be cut. Nothing is ever cut, ever. Another tax will replace the small loss in property tax, and as usual, add even more. The school board owns your home. I’d love to hear a fix for that.
Jim · May 30, 2026 at 5:57 pm
Check out what City managers get paid. It will surprise you!
FormerSSG · May 31, 2026 at 8:57 am
Not to mention Blaise Ingoglio wandering the state seeking out government fraud and waste several countries. There’s plenty to cut!
Elrod · June 1, 2026 at 2:35 am
I wonder how many “services” could be shifted from “provided by taxpayers” to “by subscription.” Libraries come to mind; I’ll have to look at my last year’s tax bill to see how much I was forced to contribute to the library; I’d think a reasonable per-book rate, maybe with a fairly low fixed base fee (users pay X dollars/year, plus Y cents per book requested) might work.
Locally, Amazon uses lockers (the use of which is more efficient for them – 60 individual lockers in one place is more efficient than start-stop to 60 physical addresses, but they don’t discount for locker delivery) and the same thing would work for libraries – one very large library (which could run “in the dark” and use robots to retrieve/restore books) instead of 12-15 branches, lockers all over town. Request a book, if available it gets delivered in 48 hours. Locally, libraries have meeting rooms which are available for free, it would seem reasonable to levy a small charge for use.
The issue for subscription-based usage fees would be to avoid what’s happened with schools – 30 years ago there were 2 slightly above minimum wage people in the school office; now schools have 20 highly paid “administrators.” Though….if subscriptions got too high system income would drop as subscribers left, but “administrators” are forever – they’d be moved to other departments and the library shut down completely. Government, and its constant expansion, is forever.
Hmmm….”government” as a subscription service. I wonder…….
C · June 1, 2026 at 3:15 am
I would have disagreed about the library. However the library isn’t what it used to be. Now it just caters to the AWFL crowd entirely. Any attempts to change it or even attempt to add more material outside of their tastes is blocked. Now I say cut it. They can have their commie BLTBBQ circle jerk somewhere else on their own dime.,
Divemedic · June 1, 2026 at 6:05 am
Libraries in my youth were places of wonder. I read thousands of books from the library. When I was in middle school, both of my parents worked, and I would sit in the library after school to read books and pretend like I was doing my homework. My reading speed was high- with it being measured at over 250 words per minute and 85% comprehension. At the time, there were 144 Hardy Boys books, and I read every one of them. I could read an entre Hardy Boys book in just over an hour. I wanted more- I went to scifi and read every Heinlein book, Asimov, Pournelle, I could find, then went on to read every book I could find about WW2: fiction or nonfiction. The three years I was in middle school, I must have read several thousand books.
Not any longer. The library is filled with homeless people getting out of the weather, men dressed as women holding “story hour” for young children, and the books are not what they used to be. We have the Internet now, which gives us access to a much larger library than we ever had in a brick and mortar building.
Comments are closed.