On the Chopping Block: Police, Fire, Community Groups, Trash Collection
This week, in an email to residents, Mayor Sheila DeCiccio asked what should be cut in the city budget as a result of state-ordered reductions
Aug. 7, 2026
By Beth Kassab
After years of stripping power from locally elected mayors and commissions when it comes to everything from regulating where apartments can be built and how tall to whether cities can ban gas-powered leaf blowers or plastic straws, state leaders have reached a new level of micro-managing local governments: mandatory lists of budget fat.
Cities and counties will be required to publish those lists starting next year as a result of a new law (HB1329) signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis this summer.
But Winter Park is getting a jump on the exercise.
With potential property tax cuts looming in the form of Amendment 3 on the November ballot, city managers asked each department to lay out cuts to reduce their budgets by 10% (This exercise will be mandatory for local governments next year as a result of the new law.)
The results?
Here’s just a sample of what’s on the budget fat list in City Hall:
Eliminate a code enforcement officer position that is currently vacant ($75,000)
Eliminate funding for the Public Art Advisory Board ($15,000)
Eliminate the mailed printed version of quarterly Winter Park Update newsletter and monthly inserts in utility bills ($71,900)
Eliminate the use of accepting cash for city services like permits or other needs at the City Hall windows ($50,000)
Eliminate two vacant firefighter positions ($200,000)
Close a Fire Rescue engine company ($1.25 million)
Begin closing the library every Monday ($210,000)
Reduce garbage collection to one day per week ($300,000)
Reduce tree plantings, canopy maintenance and eliminate residential tree permits among other changes ($600,000 combined)
Eliminate the Historic Preservation Grant Program ($100,000)
Eliminate four police detectives, one traffic officer, one community service officer and two officers dedicated to homeless outreach ($1.15 million)
Eliminate body-worn cameras and live crime center for the police department ($300,000)
Reduce funding to community organizations such as the Winter Park History Museum, the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens, Mead Botanical Garden, Blue Bamboo and more. ($243,500)
You get the idea. And that’s not the complete list.
Also, to be clear, the spreadsheet of potential cuts provided by City Hall included about 45 items. Some of those were ways to increase revenue for the city (such as adding more red light cameras, which could result in $750,000 in new revenue). Even so, the total did not add up to $9.5 million or about 10% of the proposed budget’s nearly $95 million general fund. The proposed all-funds budget, which includes the utilities and other funds, is up to $247 million.
The Voice totaled the spreadsheet to about a $7.8 million overall reduction (including some revenue gains proposed).
“As you can see, getting to a budget cut of 10% would not be painless,” Mayor Sheila DeCiccio told the community in an email she sent out this week. “It could mean fewer police officers and detectives, longer emergency response times, reduced park maintenance, one-day a week trash collection, and fewer community programs.”
She asked residents in the email what they prefer to cut, explaining, “I’m writing this email because I believe you, our Winter Park residents, deserve to see the potential cuts that are being discussed. As always, I’m committed to full transparency.”
Winter Park staff estimates Amendment 3 would require cuts of $3.4 million in 2028 and $6.7 million in 2029. So far shy of the 10% exercise. But not far off once a few years into the new tax structure if it wins by the required 60% of voters in November.
The Voice has heard from some readers who appear to be under the impression that police and fire or other “essential services” can not be cut under Amendment 3, which would increase the homestead exemption ultimately to $250,000.
But that’s not the case. Cities and counties will still provide emergency services, to be sure, but at what level?
Florida House Republicans approved language that would ban local governments from reducing money for law enforcement, firefighters, and first responders below the level in either fiscal year 2025-26 or 2026-27, whichever was higher. But the Senate never approved that version and it died during the Legislative session.
That’s why police and sheriffs’ organizations have spoken out about the potential impact of the amendment and cuts that could result from it.
“The Florida Sheriffs Association is significantly concerned with Constitutional Amendment 3, which potentially allows Tallahassee to control your local budgets, creates longer law enforcement response times, limits communities’ abilities to provide road repairs and stormwater removal — these are a few things voters deserve to be aware of,” the organization said this week on Facebook.
And the soaring cost of police and fire service is a main driver of the growth in the budget the City Commission will consider this month.
Record-high pension costs for police officers and firefighters as well as a new labor contract with the Fire Union that included a 12% pay increase in 2026 will account for 70% of new costs in the proposed 2027 budget.
In 2021, for example, the starting salary for a Winter Park police officer was $22.84 an hour or about $48,000 a year. Today it’s $30.34 an hour or more than $63,000 a year.
Police Chief Tim Volkerson has said the increases are the result of pressure on wages from other departments who have raised pay as they have struggled to hire and retain officer.
The city has 121 full-time police staff and three part-time staff slated for 2027, up from 115 full-time staff and 13 part-time staff in 2023.
The budget for the fire department is up from $13.2 million in 2020 to a proposed nearly $19 million for next year. The department has grown from 81 full-time staff and two part-time staff in 2023 to 84 full-time staff and three part-time staff.
Translated into savings for individuals residents, homesteaded property owners would pay about $818 less per year to Winter Park. The total tax savings per year for Winter Park homeowners if the ballot measure passes would be $1,783, including the reduction paid to the city as well as the reductions in taxes paid to Orange County and St. Johns River Water Management District. (Taxes paid to schools would remain unchanged under the tax proposal on the ballot.)
The City Commission is slated to hear public input and consider portion of the budget at this meetings this month on Aug. 12 and Aug. 26 before final adoption of the budget by the end of September.
Winter Park Contends with Higher Police and Fire Costs and How to Maintain Roads
The city’s proposed 2027 budget is also cautious of future cuts to property taxes if voters approve a measure on the November ballot. Winter Park homeowners would save less than $2,000 a year, but the city could ‘lose some of the things that make it feel extra special’
July 22, 2026
By Beth Kassab
The Winter Park City Commission is poised today to adopt the same property tax millage for the 19th year in a row, but the steady rate belies an increasingly complex financial picture for one of the region’s most high-profile cities as it contends with soaring costs for its police and fire departments, a demand from residents for better roads, increasing prices for electric and water customers and a governor and state Legislature looking to slash property revenues.
The All-Funds Budget, which includes the General Fund as well as the utilities and other funds, is proposed to increase this year by nearly 6% to $247 million. The General Fund, which pays for essential services such as police, fire, parks, public works and administration, is growing by about 5% to $94.6 million.
The growth in money collected by the city is being driven by higher bills for electricity, water and stormwater — the result of policy decisions in recent years and up for debate again this year by a City Commission facing big expenses to prevent storm flooding and to continue to underground all of the power lines for the city-owned electric utility. Property taxes remain a driver of growth in the general fund, where the taxes make up just under half of the revenue pie.
City Manager Randy Knight cautioned that a measure on the November ballot initiated by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature to significantly alter how local governments are funded by reducing property owners’ tax bills could eat into the kinds of services the city provides by 2028, when it is set to take effect if it passes with the required 60% approval from voters.
City officials are forecasting a hit of at least $5.4 million in the first year. Translated into savings for individuals residents, homesteaded property owners would pay about $818 less per year to Winter Park. The total tax savings per year for Winter Park homeowners if the ballot measure passes would be $1,783, including the reduction paid to the city as well as the reductions in taxes paid to Orange County and St. Johns River Water Management District. (Taxes paid to schools would remain unchanged under the tax proposal on the ballot.)
“It will have an impact on city services that will be felt,” Knight said in his annul budget memorandum to the City Commission. “Winter Park will still be able to provide essential services, but the city may lose some of the things that make it feel extra special … A loss of over $5 million is like losing almost half of the Parks Department, so it will not be a small issue to determine how best to prioritize spending, but it is likely that a combination of service reductions and revenue increases will end up balancing the budget in future years.”
With just six months to go before his retirement after decades at the helm of the city and 36 years since he helped prepared his first budget in 1990 as the city’s finance director, Knight was reflective in his final budget memo of past challenges.
“As we face potential impacts from the so-called tax reform, I want to remind you that we have faced tough times before and always endured,” Knight wrote. “The 2004 hurricane season cost approximately $18 million for recovery and wiped out our reserves. The 2008 housing bubble coupled with tax reform resulted in a huge hit on city revenues. The Pandemic shuttered businesses and locked down communities, but we survived and thrived. Today Winter Park is the envy of the region, with commercial properties with the lowest vacancy rates and highest asking rents, exceptional schools, and beautiful walkable residential communities and amenities. Over 3 million visitors come to the crown jewel of downtown Park Avenue each year and our financial reserves have grown to over $24 million.”
A graphic from Winter Park’s proposed budget document shows how money in the General Fund is spent.
But the budget document also described in stark terms how expenses for basic needs like police and fire are simply outpacing revenues.
Record-high pension costs for police officers and firefighters as well as a new labor contract with the Fire Union that included a 12% pay increase in 2026 will account for 70% of new costs in the proposed 2027 budget.
“Of the $4 million in the increase in personnel wage and benefit costs in the General Fund estimated for the next fiscal year, almost a third (30%) is due to increases in public safety pensions for police and fire
retirement plans,” according to the budget proposal.
The city will have to spend $1.2 million more on the pensions, according to the document, the result of “changes in actuarial tables, the addition of new employees and the weak 2022 stock market year that still affects their formulas.”
“Staff is reviewing the possibility of making adjustments to the pension plan in the future to attempt to mitigate this growing cost,” the document said. “With property tax reform on the horizon, having a quarter of the entire annual growth in revenue going solely to public safety pensions, is not sustainable.”
Police pay has increased by nearly 50% in Winter park in recent years and the proposed 2027 police department budget is $23.2 million, up from $14.9 million in 2020. The department will keep a community services position vacant next year to help reduce some costs, according to the proposal. The city has 121 full-time police staff and three part-time staff slated for 2027, up from 115 full-time staff and 13 part-time staff in 2023.
The budget for the fire department is up from $13.2 million in 2020 to a proposed nearly $19 million for next year. The department has grown from 81 full-time staff and two part-time staff in 2023 to 84 full-time staff and three part-time staff.
Winter Park is not alone in what has amounted to an arms race in public safety pay across Florida as departments have struggled to recruit and keep candidates for jobs that require personal risk, physical stamina and no work-from-home privileges in a post-pandemic world where many offices have emptied out.
For example, the pay for a starting deputy at the Orange County Sheriff’s office in 2020 was $49,296, according to the office. By 2025 it was $62,566. That’s in addition to increases in bonuses, the number of paid holidays and minimum compensation for off-duty pay and longevity pay.
A graphic from the city’s budget presentation shows the potential cumulative effect of the property tax measure on this November’s ballot.
In addition to public safety costs, roads emerged as Winter Park’s other main budget priority this year.
That’s the result of a survey of residents with about 800 responses that identified the quality of both brick and asphalt streets as a major need for improvement.
“This has been an area in which funding has been added in the past, but it has been insufficient to keep pace with the level of street deterioration and the cost of repairs,” read the budget memorandum.
The budget includes more money for contractors to resurface roads and doubles the amount for road materials with an additional $500,000. Winter Park has fallen short of its own goal of redoing 9 lane miles o road each year, typically completing just 4 or 5 lane miles with the exception of in 2025. The new goal will be to achieve repaving of 7.5 lane miles each year.
City Commissioners are slated to vote on the property tax rate this afternoon. More discussion and debate over the full proposed budget is scheduled for August with a final budget vote in September before the start of the new financial year in October.
Winter Park Residents to Pay More for Electricity and Water in Proposed Budget
Higher electric bills for Winter Park are likely to be a trend in the coming years, according to projections
June 23, 2026
By Beth Kassab
Winter Park residents and business owners will pay more for water and electricity under budgets approved by the city’s Utilities Advisory Board on Tuesday.
The proposed budgets, which require ultimate approval by the City Commission by the end of the summer, call for the non-fuel portion of electric rates to increase 7.7% beginning at the start of the new financial year in October while water rates will increase 4.46%.
Translated to dollars on utility bills, Winter Park residents who use about 4,000 gallons of water per month pay roughly $54 today and that would go up to about $57 (an estimated $2.49 increase), still below the regional average of just higher than $60.
But for electricity, the price change would put Winter Park above the average for municipal utilities in Florida with fewer than 100,000 customers.
Winter Park would become the fourth most expensive with rates at just under $141 or so per 1,000 kilowatt hours or an increase of about $7. The rate today is just under $134 and is 10th most expensive.
Higher rates don’t just support the utility, but also help prop up the city’s general fund responsible for paying for police, fire, parks and other essential services. The city collects a 6% franchise fee on electric bills so when rates go up so does the amount of dollars transferred to the general fund. The proposed budget for 2027 shows a $256,000 increase to $3.2 million transferred to the general fund.
In the case of both the city’s water and electric utility the cost of providing services is going up faster than the city’s revenues, Finance Director Wes Hamil told the advisory board.
For about 20 years, the city has had an ordinance that called for water rate increases to mirror the increase allowed by the Florida Public Service Commission, which this year is 2.46%
“However, those rates have not been adequate to cover the cost increases being experienced,” read Hamil’s presentation to the board.
The picture is even more stark on the electric side where projections show a series of rate increases will be needed in the coming years. Higher rates are necessary, according to the documents, to keep up with the rising cost of providing power to the city and projects such as undergrounding electric lines and paying off the debt the city took on to purchase the utility from Duke Energy (then Progress Energy) 20 years ago.
Winter Park has enjoyed years of providing some of the lowest costs in the region.
“It’s a little unrealistic to expect that will always be the case because we’re doing things others aren’t,” Hamil said, pointing to debt from the purchase and undergrounding.
By 2030, there is projected to be a nearly $10 million gap between the amount of revenue brought in by rates and the amount that will be required to run the operation, according to a preliminary cost of service study discussed by the board on Tuesday.
The study projected that rates will need to rise an average of 6.3% for each of the next five years to balance the budget.
The city of Winter Park doesn’t generate it’s own power and relies on contracts from other utilities like OUC and Florida Municipal Power Association.
The OUC contract expires at the end of this year and FMPA ends the following year. Costs are expected to go up as those contracts are renegotiated.
Also up for debate will be the city’s net metering policy or how it pays customers who generate power through their own rooftop solar panels.
More than 200 customers do so in Winter Park and that number has been rising in recent years, according to the presentation.
At issue is whether Winter Park will continue to credit them at what is known as the “retail rate” or the lower “wholesale avoided energy cost” or some combination of the two.
Budget hearings will begin at the City Commission next month.
Update: A previous version of this story has been updated to reflect more exact numbers provided by the city of Winter Park of electric bill averages before and after the proposed rate increase.
Early Retirements at City Hall. Plus Winter Park Nine to Reopen and Micromobility Ordinance in the Works
The cost cutting has already started ahead of budget talks next month. Meanwhile, the city has almost finished work on the new greens at the WP9 and new rules for electric bikes and scooters are in the works
June 17, 2026
By Beth Kassab
As talk of budget cuts swirl around local governments amid intensifying debate over the property tax amendment that will appear on the November ballot, five employees of the city of Winter Park have taken an early retirement package.
The packages, offered, as part of a cost-cutting effort, will reduce the City Hall headcount to 533.
Rene Cranis
The most high-profile, so far, is City Clerk Rene Cranis, who is well-known for her work managing city elections, city records and helping to run and document public meetings among other duties.
She has served Winter Park for three decades and has been active with the Florida Association of City Clerks.
Last month, the City Commission appointed Deputy Clerk Kim Breland, who was hired by Winter Park in 2017, to the lead role once Cranis retires at the end of June.
City spokeswoman Clarissa Howard said a cost savings figure from the five retirements will be evaluated as the city begins its annual budget process next month.
David Zusi, director of the city’s water and wastewater utility, recently retired, but his departure was already planned after 29 years of service. Commissioners recognized his dedication and contributions to maintaining the city’s water system during a May proclamation for “David Zusi Day.” Jason Riegler was appointed to take over the water utility for the city.
Winter Park Nine to Reopen
A photo courtesy of the city of Winter Park shows work underway at the Winter Park Nine.
City Manager Randy Knight said the Winter Park Nine is slated to reopen next month after the wrong chemical damaged seven of nine greens.
The city spent about $100,000 to redo all nine greens plus the putting green near Casa Feliz. Each of the greens were tilled to remove the dead grass, reshaped and then sprigged with Tif-Eagle Bermuda Grass, Howard said.
She said the new grass is of a higher quality than was used during the last renovation of the course.
The city is also trying out a new maintenance company to care for the courses. Knight said the cost of up to $197,000 for four months is about equal to the cost of doing the work in-house. He said the cost — about $50,000 per month — covers salaries for a seven-day maintenance operation, fuel, equipment repairs and maintenance, fertilization and pesticides.
Changes for E-Bikes and Scooters
City Commissioner Craig Russell is urging his colleagues on the City Commission to move forward quickly with new rules for riders of electric bikes and scooters in the wake of the death of a 13-year-old boy in Lake Nona who was hit by a truck on his e-bike on Mother’s Day last month.
Commissioner Craig Russell leads a community meeting about electric bike and scooter safety earlier this year.
He wants to see new rules on the books for police to enforce.
“My interest is to have something before the start of the school year in August,” Russell said at a recent meeting.
Other commissioners agreed and said they would consider a new ordinance this summer even though Orange County’s ordinance is not yet done.
Howard said the city attorney is still working on the draft ordinance, but some potential changes could include:
Increasing the age of riders who are required to wear helmets from 16 to 18.
Establishing a speed limit for electric scooters and bikes on sidewalks, which would be more restrictive than the state law that requires a speed limit of 10 miles per hour only within 50 feet of a pedestrian.
Keeping the prohibition of the devices from the Central Business District such as Park Avenue, New England Avenue and Orange Avenue.
Starting a new system of city-based fines (similar to a parking ticket) for violations of the ordinance. This came in response from discussion among city commission members who want to be able to enforce the rules, but protect minors from infractions that could remain on their records.
The potential to impound scooters and bikes as a result of violations to the ordinance.
A draft of the proposed changes is likely to be considered by the City Commission in the coming weeks.
Winter Park commissioners did not indicate on Wednesday whether or not they would join the legal challenge against the measure that would cut in to both the revenue and autonomy of local governments in Florida
June 11, 2026
By Beth Kassab
City Attorney Kurt Ardaman on Wednesday told the Winter Park City Commission about a legal challenge against the ballot amendment pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature to radically reduce property tax revenue for local governments.
Ardaman said the commissioners could join — as a group or as individuals — the lawsuit filed Thursday morning by Jamie Cole, one of Florida’s most well-known local government attorneys for his work on previous ballot amendments and cases protecting home rule with the law firm Weiss, Serota, Helfman, Cole & Bierman.
“Most local governments in the state of Florida do not want to be a plaintiff and we don’t need to go into those reasons here,” Ardaman said. “But they are looking for individuals as well.”
None of the commissioners on the dais — Commissioner Kris Cruzada was absent — offered any comment or indicated their thinking. Winter Park is projected to lose at least $5.6 million in homestead tax starting in 2028 if the required 60% of voters approve the amendment.
The lawsuit filed in the Second Judicial Court in Leon County on Thursday names as defendants Secretary of State Cord Byrd and Attorney General James Uthmeier. A spokeswoman for Byrd said his office does not comment on pending litigation. The Voice also reached out to Uthmeier for comment, but has not yet received a response.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit so far are Save Our Voters from Misleading Ballot Language Inc., a new nonprofit that just filed with the state of Florida this month and lists the chief operating officer of Cole’s law firm as its incorporator, as well as Thomas Campenni, a voter in Martin County who previously served as the mayor of Stuart and Michael Davey, a voter in Miami-Dade County who previously served as mayor of the Village of Key Biscayne.
The legal challenge doesn’t argue against the general concept of reducing homesteaded property taxes, but asserts the amendment slated to go before voters is inaccurate and misleading.
“Plaintiffs recognize the great importance of property tax reform, and understand the Legislature’s zeal to enact changes as quickly as possible,” it reads. “However, on an issue as important as this, voters are entitled to a fair, clear, accurate and nonmisleading ballot statement to assist them in making this critical decision.”
Cole currently represents the city of Weston and said on a recent law firm podcast that there are multiple legal problems with the amendment that aims to increase the homestead property tax exemption to $250,000 in 2028 as well as limit the growth in the values of non-homestead properties.
He led the challenge against a property tax reform amendment in 2007 that resulted in it being taken off the ballot.
Cole said the title of the 2026 amendment is just one issue that violates the legal standard for the ballot language to be neutral.
He equated the wording to a “clear political slogan.”
“When you read it, it reads like a political flyer you would get in the mail,” he said.
He said the summary also fails to be neutral enough and doesn’t accurately explain what the amendment would do. It leaves out, for instance, that the exemption would first only be increased to $150,000 in 2027 before $250,000 in 2028.
The language goes on to say that voting yes means “ensuring funding for core services” such as public safety, education, infrastructure and natural resources.
“The problem is that it does not ensure funding for those core services,” Cole said. “It does the opposite.”
The amendment takes away from property taxes, the most crucial source of local revenue for local governments, and doesn’t offer any replacement.
He predicted that many local governments would raise their property tax rates and also raise other fees to make up for the loss.
Such moves, he said, would also contradict wording that claims to protect small businesses.
While the measure would limit the growth in annual assessments on non-homesteaded property to 5% instead of the 10% cap in place today, that would apply to far more than small businesses.
“What this really does to small business is if they own a piece of property their tax rate will most certainly go up … that’s hurting small businesses,” he said.
What Does Winter Park Stand to Lose if Property Tax Cuts Pass?
Voters are expected to decide a ballot amendment in November initiated by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature that could dramatically alter how local governments operate
June 5, 2026
By Beth Kassab
What does Winter Park stand to lose if voters approve the plan by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature to dramatically reduce property taxes?
A picture of the potential fallout is becoming more clear just days after the Florida House and Senate voted to send the measure to the November ballot. Here’s what we know so far:
How much money will Winter Park lose?
Let’s break down the numbers.
In 2025, Winter Park collected about $48.5 million in taxes, according to Orange County Tax Collector Scott Randolph. The bulk of that, or about $41.1 million, is what is targeted by the state ballot amendment. Those are the dollars collected on real property — houses and businesses — based on that property’s assessed value.
Tax money that comes in from real property is divided into two categories: Homestead (the houses people live in and claim as their primary residence) and non-homestead (commercial properties, businesses, second homes or rental properties or other land).
The change ordered by the Legislature garnering the most attention is a reduction in what cities and counties will collect on homesteaded property. (Note: The Legislature revised DeSantis’ proposal, which would have also reduced taxes that support schools. So the new rules would not apply to school taxes.)
Winter Park City Hall
Winter Park collected $19.8 million in 2025 from homesteaded properties. If voters approve the proposed increase to the homestead exemption from $50,000 today to $250,000 in 2028 then those collections would drop to about $14.2 million, according to Randolph’s projections. The reduction would first be felt, to a lesser extent, by cities and counties in 2027 when the homestead exemption would jump to to $150,000 before increasing to the full $250,000 the following year.
So that’s a loss of $5.6 million based on today’s numbers or a 28% reduction in collections on homesteaded properties. The overall hit to the city’s tax roll appears closer to 12% because stormwater fees ($6.3 million), tangible property taxes ($1 million on equipment and furnishings in businesses or rental properties) and non-homesteaded property taxes ($21.2 million) aren’t affected by the change to homestead exemptions.
This year the city spent $5 million more just to cover basic cost-of-living and 3% merit raises for city staff, including more competitive wages for police and additional emergency call center staff as the city took on dispatch duties for Maitland.
The entire capital improvement budget for the Community Development Agency, which is funded entirely through property taxes, totaled $5.7 million. That included $3.2 million to fix drainage and infrastructure problems on West Fairbanks Avenue, Canton Avenue and the MLK Park basin. Another $2.5 million went to the Park Avenue Refresh project, which includes new street lighting, sidewalks, landscaping, underground infrastructure and other work.
The rebuilding of Fire Station 62 on Lakemont Avenue is estimated at $5.8 million, a project the city put off again this year because it didn’t have the funds.
Mayor Sheila DeCiccio predicted noticeable cuts will be made if the new proposal goes into effect.
“This will be devastating,” DeCiccio said after the Legislature’s vote. “We will be assessing what services the city may have to cut.”
The entire city budget is $233 million this year. That includes the two utilities that fund themselves with a combined nearly $100 million in what customers pay for water and electric service.
Beyond that, the single biggest source of revenue for the city is property taxes.
Those taxes are the biggest contributor to the city’s almost $90 million general fund, which is responsible for all of the front-line services like police and fire rescue (the two biggest expenses), parks and recreation and public works.
“Property taxes are continuing to row the boat for the city’s fiscal picture, rising 7.6% and accounting for 44% of General Fund revenue,” reads the budget document from last year. “This stabilizing force is what keeps most city services humming. Its rate of growth is sufficient to support the existing level of city services, but it is limited in what it can provide in excess of just staying on course.”
So is that all?
No. There’s more. The ballot amendment would also hamstring cities and counties by limiting future growth in the amount of taxes collected on non-homesteaded properties.
The cap on annual assessment increases for those properties — anything from a Publix grocery store to an Amazon warehouse to a vacation home — would drop from 10% to 5%.
That represents future savings for billion-dollar corporations and less future revenue for local governments to use for police, fire rescue, roads and everything else property taxes pay for.
Growth in property values is how a city like Winter Park, which has enjoyed a brisk real estate market for years, has managed to increase its budget without raising the tax rate for 18 years.
A little more than half of the city’s total ad valorem collections or about $21.2 million come from non-homesteaded properties owned by everyone from small business owners to deep-pocketed corporations who will save money as a result of the new cap.
The exact amount of future unrealized growth is hard to quantify, city officials say.
But this chart from the budget shows the importance of the increase in assessed values year to year:
But even before the new ballot amendment was in play, city officials were beginning to warn of a softening in that growth and the need for belt-tightening.
“The General Fund is seeing continued increases in property tax revenue due to increasing valuations in existing real estate which has traditionally been the primary support of the majority of the growth in revenues over time,” the budget reads. “However, this revenue source is continuing its slowing trend and could indicate tighter years ahead.”
If approved, the new cap will exacerbate that picture.
What else does the ballot amendment do?
In addition to reducing revenue cities and counties have to work with, the measure would also restrict how that money is spent.
Property taxes would only be able to pay for items that fall in one of the following buckets, according to a Senate press release:
Public safety, including law enforcement, fire service, and emergency medical service
Education and public schools (additional funds beyond operational expenses covered by school board taxes)
Road and bridge construction and maintenance, stormwater control, and other infrastructure projects
Natural resource projects, including flood control measures
Retirement benefits of local government employees
Bond obligations
Operations and administration of county officers and commissioners and municipalities, and approved expenditures
Assistant City Manager Michelle del Valle, who will be in the top role next year when the changes begin to take effect after City Manager Randy Knight retires, said city staff is already starting to assess what may or may not fit into those categories. Some items in question, she said, are considered core services that residents have come to expect.
“The biggest one that we’re going to have to start working on is Parks and Recreation,” she said. “But also the library … all of our cultural partnerships.”
The Winter Park Library & Events Center.
This year the Parks budget is nearly $15 million. The city spent about $2.4 million on its library this year. And more than $500,000 went to cultural and nonprofit organizations through the general fund and the CRA such as Mead Botanical Gardens, Winter Park Historical Association, Winter Park Day Nursery, United Arts, Blue Bamboo, Polasek Museum, Enzian Theater, Heritage Center, Welbourne Day Nursery and Winter Park Playhouse.
DeCiccio said the attempt to cut local budgets is an extension of a longstanding effort by Tallahassee to chip away at the power of local governments.
“Where are people supposed to go?” DeCiccio asked. “Are they supposed to go to the state to complain about potholes in the roads? It’s very, very frustrating.”
The proposed ballot amendment, she said, strips voters of a layer of autonomy and accountability to closest to where they live.
It’s more often the city and county commissioners vs. state officials who run into residents at the grocery store or in the school pick-up line and hear their frustrations about uneven sidewalks or broken streetlights, a desire for more shade trees or a plea to help the arts.
“What about libraries? What about playgrounds? They are taking away our ability to fund these items,” DeCiccio said. “We have the No. 1 children’s library in the state that’s now open seven days a week. How are we going to keep paying for that?”
What can cities do in response?
Even before the proposal to cut property taxes, cities like Winter Park began raising prices on everything from after-school programs run by the parks department to stormwater fees and electric rates to compensate for rising costs in recent years.
For example, at the most recent City Commission meeting, commissioners approved a contract extension for Waste Pro, which provides garbage collection. The city doesn’t make money off the contract — it’s a pass through — but residents’ monthly rates have shot up from $14.99 in 2022 to $22.22 in 2025.
And residents could pay more in other ways.
Cities and counties could choose to increase the millage rate on properties — something Winter Park has avoided for 18 years — to blunt the effect of the proposed changes.
“If county and municipal governments raise millage rates to recoup the lost revenue, that would result in higher property taxes on the portion of the value of homestead properties that remains taxable, as well as on the many properties that do not qualify for the substantially higher exemption, including the properties of new Florida residents and second homeowners, commercial properties (including apartment complexes), and industrial and agricultural properties,” reads an analysis from the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation. “This would make Florida’s property tax system far less neutral and disincentivize the purchase of certain classes of property.”
Or, the foundation argues, policymakers could choose to increase the sales tax to help make up for lost property taxes.
“Since Florida’s tax structure includes no individual income tax, sales taxes and property taxes are the primary sources of state and local tax revenue,” the group said. “Replacing the lost property tax revenue with sales tax revenue would require substantially higher local and/or state sales tax rates, a sweeping expansion of the sales tax base (likely to more than just final personal consumption), or a combination of these approaches.”
Winter Park doesn’t set the sales tax or the local gas tax. That’s done by a combination of state and county officials. But it does share in sales and gas tax revenue, though that revenue is far less than property tax revenue for the city.
Winter Park’s 2026 budget included $5.6 million from sales tax and just under $1 million from the local option gas tax, a fraction of the more than $41 million it received in property taxes.
What happens next?
As with any ballot amendment, there is likely to be litigation and fights over the ballot language.
But once it makes the November ballot, at least 60% of voters must approve it in order for it to pass. That’s a heavy lift in Florida.
In 2024, there were six constitutional amendments on the Florida ballot and all but two failed to capture the required 60% approval. That was the year an amendment to legalize recreational marijuana and to limit government interference with abortion received 56% and 57% of the vote, respectively, but fell short of the 60% threshold.
But an amendment related to property tax exemptions passed with 66% of the vote. It provided for an annual inflation adjustment for the value of the homestead property tax exemption that applies to non-school taxes.
Two years earlier, though, a 2022 amendment to increase the homestead exemption for public service workers including teachers, law enforcement officers and others failed with 59% of the vote.
What about Winter Park’s next budget?
City officials say they still plan to present a proposed budget to the City Commission in July on the typical schedule.
The next budget is based on the 2026 tax roll and would not be impacted by the proposed changes, which aren’t set to take effect until next year if they win voter approval.
But officials say they are cognizant of what potentially lies ahead and are taking that into account.
The City Commission usually begins to hear public input on the budget in August and must adopt it by the end of September before the start of the next fiscal year in October.
We Depend on your support, make a tax-deductible donation here.
Mission
The Winter Park Voice is a trusted nonprofit journalism site that covers our City Hall and beyond. We endeavor to engage, inform and connect citizens on all sides of issues affecting the quality of life in Winter Park.
Recent Comments