Amendment 3, explained: the property tax question on your November ballot

One question on your November 3 ballot reaches into property tax bills across Florida, and into the budget that pays for Wilton Manors’ police, parks and City Hall.

It’s Amendment 3, a change to the state constitution that the Legislature passed in a June special session. Supporters, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, call it a path to ending property taxes on homes. Broward’s property appraiser estimates the average Broward homeowner could save about $1,300 in the first year, NBC 6 reported. Opponents, including the Florida League of Cities, call it a tax shift: the bills for police, roads and stormwater don’t go away when the revenue does. The state estimates local governments would lose $4.9 billion in the first year it reaches their budgets.

Here’s what it actually does, what it would mean for Wilton Manors, and who’s on each side, from the amendment’s own text and the official estimates. We don’t take a side. Island City Today doesn’t endorse in any race or on any ballot question. Amendment 3 needs 60% of the vote to pass, and it would take effect January 1, 2027.

What you’ll see on the ballot

It’s a long one. Here are the title and summary, word for word, as the Division of Elections lists them:

INCREASED HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION; LOWER CAP ON INCREASES IN NON-HOMESTEAD PROPERTY ASSESSMENTS

This amendment increases the homestead exemption, for all non-school taxes, to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, and adjusts for inflation thereafter. It requires the Legislature to prescribe a uniform procedure for counties and municipalities, for their respective levies, to increase the homestead exemption up to full assessed value, and allows special districts, subject to referendum approval, to do the same. Persons who are not Florida residents on December 31, 2026, will receive the existing homestead exemption upon qualifying for a homestead exemption, with the increased homestead exemption beginning with the fifth year of exemption, to the extent permitted by the U.S. Constitution. This amendment reduces the annual cap on assessment increases for non-homestead properties from 10% to 5%. This amendment requires counties and municipalities to use property taxes solely for public safety, education and schools, infrastructure, natural resources, bond debt service, retirement benefits for employees, and operations and administration. Other expenditures may be approved by county officers or county or municipal governing bodies unless prohibited by general law, notwithstanding Article VII, Section 9(a) of the Florida Constitution, which allows counties and municipalities to levy property taxes for their respective purposes. This amendment takes effect January 1, 2027.

This isn’t the wording the Legislature wrote. In August, Circuit Judge David Frank ruled that the original title “does not state the basic legal purpose of the amendment; it endorses it,” WLRN and the Florida Phoenix reported. Attorney General James Uthmeier then rewrote the title and summary in an August 13 letter to the Secretary of State. The amendment’s text itself didn’t change.

The House passed the joint resolution behind it, CS/HJR 1-F, 75–26 on June 2. The Senate passed it 30–9 the same day.

What it changes, in four parts

1. A bigger homestead exemption, for non-school taxes only

Today, the first $25,000 of a homestead’s assessed value is exempt from all property taxes. A second exemption covers the value between $50,000 and $76,411, for non-school taxes only; the top of that band rises with inflation. So a home assessed at $76,411 or more has $51,411 exempt from county, city and other non-school taxes. Only $25,000 is exempt from school taxes.

Under Amendment 3, the exemption from non-school taxes becomes the first $150,000 of assessed value on January 1, 2027, and the first $250,000 on January 1, 2028. From 2029 it rises with inflation. The school-tax exemption stays at $25,000.

Two things follow from the text:

• A homestead assessed at $150,000 or less in 2027, or $250,000 or less from 2028, would owe no non-school property tax. It would still owe school taxes on value above $25,000.
• No homestead exemption covers special assessments, which the constitution keeps separate. Wilton Manors’ fire assessment is one.

The amendment also tells the Legislature to set up a way for counties and cities to exempt homesteads further, up to their full assessed value, for their own taxes. Special districts could do the same with voter approval. The state’s estimate below doesn’t include this. The state’s estimating conference says its effect depends on future laws and “is unknown.”

2. A five-year wait for people who move to Florida

The test is where you lived on December 31, 2026, not when you buy. It applies to homeowners who, in the amendment’s words, “had not maintained a permanent residence in this state as of December 31, 2026.” They get:

• the $25,000 school-tax exemption;
• a $50,000 exemption from non-school taxes, adjusted for inflation from 2028;
• the full exemption beginning with their fifth year of exemption.

Starting in 2030, a county or city may shorten that five-year requirement for its own taxes by a two-thirds vote, if it finds “a critical local need.”

The City of Wilton Manors’ Amendment 3 page describes this differently. It says that anyone who buys a home on or after January 1, 2027 faces “a mandatory 5-year waiting period before becoming eligible for the new exemptions.” Under the amendment’s text, someone who already lived in Florida at the end of 2026 and buys later doesn’t wait. And a new resident gets $50,000 during the wait, not nothing.

3. A lower cap for rentals, second homes and businesses

The assessed value of property that isn’t a homestead can’t rise more than 10% a year for non-school taxes. That covers rentals, second homes, commercial buildings and vacant land. Starting January 1, 2027, the amendment lowers that cap to 5%. It still doesn’t apply to school taxes.

4. A list of what property tax can pay for

The amendment says county and city property taxes “shall be used only to”:

• provide for public safety, including law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services;
• fund education and public schools;
• pay for infrastructure, including roads, bridges and stormwater;
• pay for natural resource projects, including flood control;
• issue bonds and pay existing debt;
• meet retirement obligations for local government employees;
• fund the operations and administration of counties and cities, “and the expenditures approved by” their governing bodies, except what state law prohibits.

People read the list differently.

• Supporters say it limits what property tax can pay for. Florida Realtors’ campaign site says the measure “requires local governments to use property taxes solely for public safety, schools, infrastructure, natural resources and other critical needs,” PolitiFact reported. The group also acknowledged that it doesn’t require specific spending levels for public safety.
• Jeff Brandes, a former Republican state senator who founded the nonprofit Florida Policy Project, told PolitiFact that “nothing in the amendment guarantees police or fire get funded first.” He called the “operations and administration” item broad: “What isn’t operations and administration?” Brandes was one of the plaintiffs who challenged the original ballot wording.
• At a June 9 city budget workshop, a commissioner asked whether public safety still had a carve-out. City Attorney Kerry Ezrol’s answer, as the minutes summarize it: property tax revenue may not be used for anything other than “core services.”
• The text above is what voters are deciding.

What it would mean for the city’s budget

This is where it gets local. Property tax is the largest source of money for Wilton Manors’ day-to-day government. The general fund the Commission adopted on September 24 totals $26,401,591, and about $14.8 million of it is the city’s own property tax. See our budget hearing recap.

The state’s estimate. The Revenue Estimating Conference adopted its estimate on July 10. It includes a line for Wilton Manors, covering the city and any special districts that depend on it. These are the losses it estimates for each fiscal year:

Statewide, the conference estimates local governments would lose $4.93 billion in 2027-28, growing to $11.83 billion a year. For all local non-school taxes levied in Broward County, it estimates $535.7 million in 2027-28 and $968.5 million in 2028-29.

Formally, the conference adopted a “zero/negative indeterminate” impact, because the amendment depends on voters. The dollar figures are its estimate of what happens if voters approve it.

The city’s estimate is lower.

• A presentation at the June 9 budget workshop put the first-year loss at about $1,859,000 and the second-year loss at about $3,271,000.
• The July 22 workshop minutes give those as “roughly $1.8 million” and $3.3 million, and say they are “based on 2025 taxable values.”
• The Broward League of Cities’ fact sheet on Wilton Manors uses the same figures, $1,859,134 and $3,271,312.

Why the estimates differ. The state’s figure counts both the bigger exemption and the lower 5% cap, and it projects property values forward. The city’s figures, as presented, describe the exemption increase and use 2025 values. We found no document that reconciles the two.

Which years they cover. The first tax year the amendment would affect is 2027. Those taxes pay for the city’s budget year that runs from October 2027 to September 2028. The city’s minutes call that FY 2028, and the state calls it 2027-28. The city’s Amendment 3 web page gives the same $1.9 million and $3.3 million figures but labels them fiscal years 2027 and 2028, a year earlier.

Planning for it. At the July 22 workshop, the city’s Financial Advisory Board proposed setting aside $1.9 million in case the amendment passes. We have not found a vote adopting that proposal.

What it would mean for a homeowner

The honest answer: it depends on the home’s assessed value and on the tax rates of each government that taxes it. Broward County Property Appraiser Marty Kiar estimates the average homeowner could save about $1,300 in the first year and about $2,300 in the second, NBC 6 reported on October 5. We could not find the Property Appraiser’s own document with those figures.

Owners of rentals, second homes and commercial property don’t get the homestead exemption. Their assessed values for non-school taxes could rise no more than 5% a year, down from 10%.

Who is for it and who is against it

For

• Gov. Ron DeSantis, in an October 21 release: “Amendment 3 creates a path to full elimination of property taxes for homesteaded Floridians.”
• Sen. Bryan Avila, the Senate sponsor, in the Senate’s June 2 release, said it provides “meaningful relief for Florida families.”
• Florida Realtors said on August 23 that the amendment “offers voters an opportunity to provide meaningful property tax relief.”

Against

• The Florida League of Cities: “Amendment 3 is not a tax cut, it’s a tax shift.”
• Florida TaxWatch recommends a no vote, WLRN reported. Its guide says exemptions and caps that benefit only some properties “are not really tax cuts as much as tax shifts.”
• Senate President Ben Albritton, who praised the measure when the Senate passed it in June, now says he will vote no, citing its cost to rural counties, WLRN and the Florida Phoenix reported on October 21. The same report lists the Florida Sheriffs Association, the Florida State Fraternal Order of Police and the Florida Association of Professional Firefighters among the measure’s opponents.

What we couldn’t confirm

• No official financial impact statement appears with the measure. The Division of Elections lists none.
• No document from the Broward Property Appraiser with the savings estimates above. They come from news reports.
• No reconciliation of the state’s and the city’s revenue estimates.

If you have a primary document that answers one of these, send it to us.

For candidates, deadlines and where to vote, see our 2026 election guide. Island City Today doesn’t endorse. The person who runs this site doesn’t live in Wilton Manors and can’t vote in this election.

Correction, October 29, 2026: An earlier version said people read the spending list’s last item differently and gave Jeff Brandes’s and City Attorney Kerry Ezrol’s comments as readings of that item; both were about the list as a whole. It also said the property appraiser estimates homeowners “would” save; his estimate is that they “could.” And it said owners of non-homestead property would see slower growth in assessed values; the cap limits increases only above 5% a year. We have also added the supporters’ reading of the list, Brandes’s role in the ballot-wording lawsuit, and Senate President Ben Albritton’s earlier support.