Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect school property taxes being exempted in the cuts under consideration by the Florida Legislature in a late night vote.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ property tax proposal, which was passed by the Florida Legislature Tuesday afternoon, would substantially reduce property taxes for more than 58,000 households in Escambia County—76% of all homesteaded properties—but it would also leave local governments with $124.8 million in losses over two years.
The Escambia County Property Appraiser’s office provided the News Journal with numbers that show the impact of the property tax proposal on local governments in Escambia County using the 2025 tax rolls.
As the proposal was written originally, Escambia County Public Schools would have take the biggest hit under the current proposal, losing $40.1 million in the first year and $54.8 million in the second year, based on the 2025 tax rolls. The loss would be a 29.5% reduction in the amount of property tax the school district collects.
In 2025, the school district reported $364.7 million in expenses, and about 50% of those costs were covered using property tax revenue.
Property tax cut proposals considered earlier in the year by the Legislature sought to spare schools and law enforcement, but DeSantis’ proposal makes no exemption for school property taxes or law enforcement funding.
During one of the first committee meetings of the special session called to consider the proposal, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved an amendment that keeps school property taxes in place. The school tax exemption was included in the House and Senate versions approved Tuesday.
As the proposal stood before the Florida Legislature on June 1, the homestead exemption on property taxes would be raised to $150,000 in the first year of implementation and $250,000 in the second year. Each year after, the exemption would increase based on the inflation rate.
The county-wide Escambia Sheriff’s municipal service tax, which provided $16.5 million in revenue to the sheriff’s office, will see a 27.5% hit with a reduction of $4.5 million under the full $250,000 exemption. The reduction is only 4.7% of the sheriff’s $96 million budget, but that is before accounting for the cuts the Escambia County Commissioners will be compelled to make to cover a $63.8 million shortfall.
The homestead exemption gives a tax break to property owners’ primary residences, so it can’t be claimed on second properties or non-residential properties.
Escambia County Property Appraiser Gary “Bubba” Peters told the News Journal that there are approximately 76,000 homesteaded property owners in Escambia County, and of those, about 58,000 would be eligible for the full $250,000 exemption.
Originally, those eligible for the full exemption would pay no property tax based on the value of their home, but with the school taxes now exempt from the cuts, most of those homeowners in Escambia County would see a 60% reduction in the amount they pay. They would still be subject to property tax fees like the county’s fire protection fee or fees that some neighborhoods have had put in place to fund things like street lights, known as a municipal service benefit unit.
The 18,000 property owners with homes that have a taxable value above $250,000 would still see a property tax cut, but the first $250,000 of taxable value of their homes would be removed from property tax calculations.
This can best be seen locally with the Downtown Improvement Board in Pensacola. It collected $834,747 in property tax in 2025, but under the proposal would only lose $8,267 of those revenues, as there are very few homesteaded properties inside its boundaries.
Local officials have warned that if these proposals go through, critical services will have to be cut.
One example is the West Florida Public Libraries system, which faces a 25% cut to its entire budget. While the library system’s budget is $12.3 million, its only real source of funding is the countywide library property tax, which accounts for 96% of the total budget.
The Florida Association of Counties released projections showing that rural counties will face deeper cuts to their budgets than more urban counties.
Their numbers show that a $36.8 million hit to Santa Rosa County will represent nearly 30% of that county’s tax levy. Compare that with Miami-Dade County’s $445.4 million hit, which is only 11% of the county’s levy, according to data from the Florida Association of Counties.
Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves said the proposal as it stands would be “catastrophic” and hurt the city’s public safety. He noted that 60% of the city’s general fund goes to public safety, such as law enforcement and the fire department.
“If any taxpayer had their income cut by 23, 24 or 25% at their job, this is the equivalent of waking up the next day and selling their car,” Reeves said. “So now you can’t get to work. We’re selling our ability to operate at all and calling that reform.”
DeSantis has sold the budget as shifting the tax burden to wealthy out-of-state property owners.
“Tax someone rich,” DeSantis said. “If some billionaire from Brazil is buying, tax them. Good, that’s fine with me. I’m looking out for the Floridians here.”
However, the current proposals before the Legislature also make it much harder for local governments to raise property taxes on those still taxable.
As proposed, the new law would require local governments to use what’s called the “roll back rate” for property taxes, meaning the municipality would collect the same amount of tax revenue as the previous year despite growth in property values. Raising the property tax to 110% of the rollback rate would require a two-thirds vote of the local board. Above that would require unanimous approval in most cases or a voter referendum.
Local governments are also limited by state law on how they can raise local sales tax and on how sales tax revenue can be spent.
Reeves said he supports property tax reform, but there should be data to back up the impacts. Reeves pointed out that it’s unclear how the proposals would address Community Redevelopment Area tax revenue, given that Pensacola has outstanding bonds that run into the 2040s.
“What we’re dealing with this week is a half-baked decision that will impact decades of how local government works in Florida,” Reeves said. “This is a conversation that deserves some thought and logic rather than a rushed decision to get a political headline to say you shouldn’t have to pay property tax.”
Losses Escambia local governments*:
*Numbers are estimates from the Escambia County Property Appraiser’s Office using the 2025 tax rolls under the proposal as written the morning of June 1.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: DeSantis tax cut may cost Escambia $124.8M, the gut law enforcement and libraries
Reporting by Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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