DeSantis wants special session to implement ‘taxpayer bill of rights’

One of the last actions Gov. Ron DeSantis wants done before leaving office in January is to implement a “taxpayer bill of rights” via a special legislative session, he said Wednesday.

He established that expectation during a news conference following passage Tuesday of Amendment 3.

The specific date for the session is up to the two chambers of the Legislature, he said. But, when asked before the election, incoming legislative leaders were non-committal on an Amendment 3-focused special session. Neither chambers responded to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon.

“That has to be done by January 1, and we will do it by January 1,” DeSantis said.

The amendment takes effect Jan. 1, but the first two years of its property tax exemption are set in the Florida Constitution already. The amendment allows legislators to eventually expand homestead exemptions to the full value of homes.

Tax shift?

DeSantis wants a special session, in part, to prevent local governments “from doing an end-run around the amendment and taxing them in other ways.”

Lawmakers skeptical of the amendment and local leaders from around the state questioned how governments will function with the decreases in revenue, and some insisted that shifting taxes, perhaps through fee-based government, could be the only way to maintain services.

Former state Sen. Jeff Brandes, who has rallied hard against Amendment 3, questioned the governor’s approach. He serves as president of the nonpartisan Florida Policy Project.

“I don’t know how [DeSantis] would exempt non-ad valorem taxation, or try to prevent some other type of fee shift. [Local governments] have all these statutory fees available to them,” Brandes told the Phoenix Wednesday. “I just don’t understand where he’s going, because so many have already built this into their system.”

Brandes sees no need for a special session.

“I don’t think there’s any reason that the Legislature should go back into special session under a DeSantis administration,” Brandes said, going on to say that an implementing bill for Amendment 3 can be the first bill of the 2027 session.

“Understand, many legislators are reading this amendment for the first time and trying to understand what it really does now. They didn’t think it was going to pass,” Brandes said.

Legislators “are going to have to build an entire process” for cities that operate under Amendment 3 to consolidate into counties — particularly counties that aren’t interested in absorbing cities.

To do a special session, Brandes said, “you’re going to be basically putting out a skeleton, an outline, and then you’re going to be filling in the holes for the next five years.”

“None of this is going to go smoothly,” he said.

“The cities and counties, before they were concerned; now they’re terrified and the Legislature itself is terrified,” Brandes said.

Legislative leaders dubious

On the “Between the Lines with Dara Kam” podcast, recorded and published before the election, the two incoming legislative chamber leaders didn’t sound committed to a special session before January.

“We in the Senate believe a lot of it in what we did was self-executing. However, there may be some implementation language we need to put around it — we do understand that,” Senate President-Designate Jim Boyd said on the podcast. “Personally, I believe that it can wait until we reconvene in January. I think the new administration ought to have a say in that.”

House Speaker-Designate Sam Garrison told Kam that Amendment 3 “will dominate the upcoming session, and not be something that can be rolled out and just implemented in three days. This is a very, very complicated issue.”

“I personally am of the belief, I’d rather be right than be quick,” Garrison said at the time, prefacing that comment by saying, “I don’t want to pre-judge it because I’m a big believer of you play the hole you’re on.”

The amendment was the only one of three on the ballot to garner more than 60% support from voters, the threshold required to pass state constitutional amendments.

Property tax slash crosses approval threshold on election night

The amendment will increase the homestead exemption for non-school taxes from $50,000 per year to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028.

At full implementation, state economists estimate Amendment 3 could reduce local revenues by as much as $12 billion annually.

The amendment did not receive 60% in any individual county among the five least populated counties in the state. Rural counties voiced concern they would not be able to function in a world in which Amendment 3 passed.

In Liberty County, the least populous in the state, the amendment received near 58%. In the next least populated counties, Franklin and Lafayette, the amendment received 47% and 57% support, respectively.

DeSantis said he wants to work with legislators to create a fund for smaller counties to ensure they can pay for core needs.

The amendment, DeSantis said, “that’s going to be such a breath of fresh air for people.”

“I’m glad that since I was involved with this, I want to make sure that we land it right,” DeSantis said.

Lawmakers will be in Tallahassee for a mostly ceremonial organizational session the week of Nov. 30.