Amendment 3 sounds good, but is devastating in practice | Opinion

News admin September 6, 2026 0 Comments

Amendment 3 sounds good, but is devastating in practice | Opinion

For 16 years, I served as a Leon County commissioner. I’m a Republican, and I ran for office – and governed – on a simple promise: keep taxes low, keep government lean, and don’t take a dollar from taxpayers that the community doesn’t truly need. I fought that fight through recessions, hurricanes, and plenty of difficult budget cycles. I still believe in it today.

I also had the privilege of serving as president of both the Florida Association of Counties and the National Association of Counties. Those experiences gave me a front-row seat to how local government works – and what happens when it doesn’t.

That’s exactly why I’m chairing the statewide campaign against Amendment 3.

I understand the appeal. Nobody likes paying property taxes, and every homeowner would love a smaller bill. But Amendment 3 isn’t a tax cut – it’s a wrecking ball dressed up as tax relief. It doesn’t come out of the state’s budget. It comes directly out of the cities and counties that provide the services Floridians depend on every day: law enforcement, fire rescue, 911, roads, parks, and health services.

What does that mean in the real world? Fewer deputies on patrol. Slower response times when someone calls 911 in the middle of the night. Fire stations operating with fewer resources and ambulances taking longer to reach a heart attack or crash. Those aren’t abstract numbers on a government spreadsheet. Those are real services, provided by real people, that Floridians count on every day.

It also means less money for parks, roads, maintenance, and local health services. Florida communities have spent decades building parks, maintaining roads, improving emergency services, and investing in quality of life. Local governments don’t have some secret pot of money sitting around to absorb a multi-billion-dollar hit.

Eventually, the math must work.

There are no free lunches. If you dramatically reduce one source of revenue, something must give. Services get cut, maintenance gets deferred, fees go up, or the burden gets shifted somewhere else.

And that “somewhere else” matters.

Amendment 3 doesn’t just threaten services – it shifts more of the burden onto renters and small businesses. I owned and operated a small business for years before I ever sat on a commission dais. I know what happens when property taxes and fees increase on commercial property. Those costs don’t disappear. Landlords pass them to tenants. Businesses pass them to customers. And when margins get squeezed, hiring and wage increases suffer.

That’s not really tax relief. It’s moving the bill from one Floridian to another while reducing services at the same time.

Florida TaxWatch, a nonpartisan taxpayer watchdog, recently launched a statewide Property Tax Resource Center to help voters understand what’s actually in this amendment. Their research suggests the measure could strip tens of billions of dollars from local government services over the next five years – dollars used for deputies, firefighters, paramedics, roads, parks, and other services Floridians use every day.

I still believe in lower taxes. I spent 16 years in office trying to prove it. But fiscal conservatism isn’t just about cutting taxes. It’s about spending carefully, demanding accountability, and being honest about the consequences of the choices we make.

If local governments are wasting money, hold them accountable. If taxes are too high, make elected officials justify them. If they can’t, vote them out. That’s how the system is supposed to work.

Let’s work to lower taxes. Let’s demand that government operate efficiently and account for every dollar it spends.

But let’s do it the right way.

Amendment 3 is not the right way.

Bryan Desloge chairs the Vote No on Amendment 3 effort. He served 16 years as a Leon County Commissioner, is a former president of the Florida Association of Counties and National Association of Counties and is a former small business owner.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Amendment 3 sounds good, but is devastating in practice | Opinion

Reporting by Bryan Desloge, Your Turn / Tallahassee Democrat

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This story was originally published September 6, 2026 at 5:02 AM.