Will Miami-Dade raise the gas tax or cut arts funding this year? What we know

Facing another , Miami-Dade’s mayor this week revealed she won’t be diverting money from charity and arts grants or raising new revenue by making drivers pay more for gas or transit passengers pay more for rides.

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Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a town hall Monday night that her 2027 budget proposal contains “serious belt tightening” but that she won’t be calling for the nonprofit grant cuts that were one of last year’s top budget controversies before the mayor retreated on that $40 million austerity measure. Still, the mayor, who has vowed not to propose property tax increases, offered no hint at where the cuts will come.

Levine Cava confirmed to the Miami Herald after the event that her budget proposal would maintain the current level of funding for county-funded charities — known as community-based organizations, or CBOS in county parlance — and for existing arts grants, which were also subject to cuts in last year’s budget plan before the mayor dropped that plan, too.

In taking arts and charity cuts off the table, Levine Cava has narrowed her options for closing what this year’s forecast projects as a $173 million revenue gap for the 2027 budget year, which begins Oct. 1. That figure has likely grown in the months after her administration released the projection in December, with Levine Cava calling 2027 “a very challenging year.”

The county isn’t making as much money off property taxes as it expected to, and the federal COVID aid dollars that boosted Miami-Dade’s coffers at the start of Levine Cava’s first term are all but gone.

“We’re presenting you a balanced budget,” she said of the 2027 plan that will be unveiled next week, “but one that does include some serious belt tightening.”

Levine Cava did say she asked departments that are funded by property taxes — a category that includes Parks and Animal Services — to cap their spending increases at 3%, despite the fact that maintaining existing service and staffing levels would require about 8% more money.

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She also said that her 2027 budget won’t try to raise money from transit riders or car owners — another change from last year’s budget proposal.

In the 2026 budget, commissioners rejected Levine Cava’s request for a 50-cent increase in transit fares — from $2.25 to $2.75. On Monday, the mayor said fares are flat in the 2027 transit budget.

To raise extra dollars for the cash-strapped Transportation and Public Works Department, Levine Cava plans to tap into a reserve of property taxes set aside for future transit projects — a fund known as the Transportation Infrastructure Improvement District. She did not say how much from that fund — which had $120 million heading into this year — would go into the transit operating budget.

Levine Cava also said the county’s three-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax would stay flat in her budget. Last year, she initially proposed raising $5 million by increasing it to five cents, but then dropped that proposal.

County commissioners will vote on Levine Cava’s budget proposal in September, following two public hearings on Sept. 3 and Sept. 17.

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