Florida Voters Cut Property Taxes, Then Carve Out an Exception for Schools

Two Votes, One Ballot

Florida voters sent a mixed signal on taxes in Tuesday’s election, according to results reported by the Tampa Bay Times. Statewide, 62% of voters approved Amendment 3, which raises homestead exemptions and lowers property tax bills for owner-occupied homes. At the same time, voters in 26 of 27 counties with school district tax referendums on the ballot approved those measures, agreeing to keep paying local sales or property taxes earmarked for schools even as they voted to shrink their overall tax bills.

The pattern held across the political map. In conservative Charlotte County, 74% of voters backed Amendment 3 while 72% renewed the school district’s 1-mill property tax; all but one precinct supported both. In more liberal Hillsborough County, three-quarters of precincts backed both the amendment and a school sales tax. Miami-Dade and Walton County, a large urban county and a small Panhandle one, each delivered at least 80% support for their school property tax measures, framed around keeping teacher pay competitive.

The only exception was Suwannee County, where voters rejected a proposed new school sales tax but still supported the statewide property tax amendment.

Why Schools Were Carved Out

The reason the two results aren’t contradictory, according to the Times’ reporting, is structural: lawmakers exempted school taxes from Amendment 3’s reach. Andrea Messina of the Florida School Boards Association said polling had shown the amendment would have failed if it applied to school levies. “Communities trust their school boards and school districts and continue to demonstrate their clear support for them,” she said.

That exemption matters because Florida’s Legislature, not local school boards, sets most school district property tax rates through a statewide formula that redistributes money so each district gets comparable per-student funding. The state also restricts how districts can spend much of what they collect, leaving limited room for discretionary spending. Local sales tax referendums typically fund construction and capital projects; local property tax referendums can cover general costs such as salaries, security and arts programming, categories the state funding formula often doesn’t fully cover.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, at a post-election press conference, acknowledged school funding’s distinct mechanics and said lawmakers might eventually rewrite the formula to “provide strong funding for schools and still find relief for homestead property owners.” He said he didn’t expect Amendment 3 to immediately affect school tax revenue, though the Times noted some observers flagged potential risk to school-adjacent services like crossing guards and nurses that aren’t always protected by the funding formula.

What Comes Next in Tallahassee

Bill Montford, who leads the state’s school superintendents association, raised a separate point for lawmakers to consider: the four-year renewal cycle required for most district tax referendums. He argued for extending that to six years, saying it would let districts and employees plan with more certainty rather than facing repeated ballot fights over pay-dependent revenue.

Why It Reaches This Coast

Nothing in Tuesday’s results singles out Levy County or Cedar Key, the Times’ reporting covers statewide and county-level data without a specific tally for this coast. But the structural facts apply here as much as anywhere in Florida: Amendment 3’s expanded homestead exemption now applies to every qualifying homeowner in Levy County, while the state formula and spending restrictions governing local school taxes remain unchanged. Any future move by Tallahassee to rework how school districts are funded, or to lengthen referendum cycles as Montford suggested, would reach Levy County’s school board the same as it would Miami-Dade’s or Walton’s. Residents watching their own tax bills and local school budgets should expect the debate over how to reconcile both is far from settled.