Why this Democratic state senator voted for Florida's tax reduction plan

Democratic state Sen. Mack Bernard of Palm Beach County says he voted in favor of Florida's tax reduction plan to give residents "the opportunity to have relief."

This comes as Floridians could decide later this year whether homeowners should get a larger chunk of their property taxes eliminated.

During a special session last week, lawmakers approved a ballot proposal that would increase homestead exemptions on the property taxes that don't go toward schools.

WUSF's Your Florida government reporter Douglas Soule previously reported that by next year, homeowners won't have to pay those taxes on the first $150,000 of their house's value. This is up from $50,000 now. The exemption would rise to $250,000 in 2028.

In addition, starting next year, those moving to the Sunshine State would have to live in Florida for five years before qualifying for the larger homestead exemption. According to the plan, local government can only use the property tax revenues for services like public safety, education, administrative costs and infrastructure.

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But all this would need at least 60% voter support in November to come to fruition.

House Speaker Daniel Perez said if voters approve the plan, local governments will have to make tough decisions on how to spend taxpayer dollars.

"The win here is that we trust our voters. We have smart voters in Florida. We have educated voters," he said. "They are going to have the opportunity to either vote this up or vote this down on the ballot in November."

A 'tax shift?' Experts believe plan's effects will differ across Florida

But most Democrats and local government officials argued that these changes to the state's tax structure will hurt local entities the most.

For example, Florida House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Hillsborough County called this a "tax shift."

"Local communities would have to offset this loss in revenue by increasing taxes and fees for public services and potentially making budget cuts," she said.

Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman of Palm Beach County said she believes this could "potentially bankrupt some of our local counties and cities."

Samantha Putterman with PolitiFact said experts believe the effects will vary widely by county and city since each differs in how and from where they collect taxes. She added that since all local governments may lose some revenue, they could potentially raise millage rates.

Gov. Ron DeSantis and other supporters have pointed to overall local government spending as another way to close the financial gap.

"He's talked about this big increase rate since 2019, coming from about 33 billion (dollars) annually to nearly 60 billion, but also reducing spending again very much depends on the county," Putterman explained.

ALSO READ: Fact-checking claims that Florida's property tax amendment will 'defund' essential public services

She added that it depends on whether a municipality has more primary residences, as they could get hit more if the county hypothetically is "much more efficient and has already trimmed a lot of fat" and there isn't much more to trim.

"Thus could result in either the tax shift or possibly cutting certain services that they can't afford anymore," Putterman continued.

The governor does not believe the proposal will "defund" local governments.

"They say you're going to bankrupt local government. I think if you look at the figures, yeah, you can see there's not going to be a single local government that's going to be certainly worse off than they were five or six years ago," DeSantis said.

Putterman explained how, although there are studies showing some Florida counties getting tax revenue that exceeds inflation and population growth, not all do.

"Some policy experts also say that governments are contending with increased expenditures for things like public safety, utilities, maintenance and construction, and that forcing local budgets to collect property taxes at those 2019 levels could essentially defund them because these costs still remain," she said.

In addition, Republican Palm Beach County Commissioner Maria Marino has expressed concerns about paying for park maintenance and other services if the proposal is enacted.

"It's just gonna be the folks that are homesteaded who think that this is such a great deal and not realize that if you want to go to the beach, go ahead, but there won't be any lifeguards there to guard you or if you want to go to a park, go ahead, but there's not gonna be any maintenance on that park," Marino said. "I think people need to realize that there's a huge heavy impact on this, and I hope our legislators understand the impact."

Bernard, also of Palm Beach County, was one of 30 senators who voted in support of the proposal. On "The Florida Roundup," the Democrat and former commissioner said he believes the administration will look at ways they can deliver better services for the residents.

"We're in a new environment where you've got AI that's impacting the county, and so we have to figure out how we're going to deliver better services to our residents, and this is forcing that conversation right now," Bernard said.

Providing Floridians with 'the opportunity to have relief'

Overall, Bernard said he went into this year's session focused on tackling affordability.

"I had two criteria, which was we're going to put everything on the table, and then also to figure out how we can give Floridians a break," he said.

He had filed property tax legislation. One was to provide an exemption for seniors, provide exemptions for first-time home buyers and people who have lived in Florida for a long time and also small businesses, he said.

"So because of the fact that we went into an extended session, by bills weren't able to be heard, but the governor — everyone knew that the governor wanted to do a special session on property taxes," he told host Tom Hudson.

Although Bernard wanted a targeted approach to the issue, the legislation that ultimately got passed was general for all property owners who have primary homes. But Bernard still believes this proposal will provide relief.

"Was this the perfect bill? It was not the perfect bill, but we have to provide Floridians the opportunity to have relief, and so what this does is this year, the voters will get that chance," Bernard said. "We're in a democracy, and for me, I felt like it was so important for us to give the voters this opportunity to vote."

He added that he does support the legislation to increase the homestead exemption.

"The reason why is when the governor started this conversation in March of last year, the governor wanted to eliminate homestead exemption for Floridians," he said. "This would cripple the cities and the counties, and the initial bill that the governor had proposed last week, it had where it impacts the public schools."

He said fellow lawmakers worked to fight against this initial idea.

"Let's make sure we're protecting our public schools, and also, there are other parts in the bill that would cripple local government, the schools, the counties and the municipalities, and so we made changes to that bill that we felt like, even though it wasn't a perfect bill, but we made changes as Democrats to make sure that there are some things that we could protect," he said.

However, he does believe there will be cities affected. For instance, there could be some cuts in services.

"But everyday Floridians right now are making tough decisions, and they're tightening their belts, and so some of the cities and some of the counties will have to do the same thing," Bernard said.

Bernard added that there could be opportunities for shared services between cities and the county.

"At the end of the day, in November, if the voters vote no, then guess what? This bill dies," Bernard said.

This story was compiled from interviews conducted by Tom Hudson for "The Florida Roundup."