An aerial top-down photo shows a suburban residential neighborhood in Tampa, Florida, featuring single-family homes with private swimming pools, landscaped backyards, green lawns, and clean paved streets lined with palm trees. — An aerial view of a Tampa neighborhood. Credit: Gianfranco Vivi / Shutterstock

Creative Loafing Tampa Bay Florida’s Constitutional Amendment recommendations are easy: Vote “No” on all three, especially No. 3, the extremely well-funded property tax-cutting amendment, which even the bill’s former champions are now voting against. Here’s why.

Amendment 1, Budget Stabilization Fund: No

On the ballot, expanding the “Budget Stabilization Fund” might sound like a good idea. Who doesn’t want a bigger rainy day fund? Over time, the proposal raises the fund’s maximum balance from 10% to 25% of general revenue collections (that is money the state gets from sales taxes and other taxes and fees that are not set aside for a specific purpose).; the nonpartisan Florida Tax Watch says it could take 22 years to reach that 25% threshold. Gov. Ron DeSantis told voters to vote “No,” on this—and we agree with him. The fund was created in 1992, and is almost maxed out. It hasn’t been used since 2008, and there’s no reason to give lawmakers in Tallahassee more control over our taxes to fix something that isn’t broken.

Amendment 2: Agricultural Tangible Personal Property Tax Exemption

As far as convoluted amendments go, this one’s not so Byzantine. Basically, it’s a tax break for farm equipment classified as “tangible personal property.” If passed, the state foresees a roughly $31 million drop in property-tax revenue. Farmers undoubtedly have it rough, but this is a special interest tax break that gives big farming interests the most relief. In Florida, small farms already pay less for equipment thanks to state laws that exempt the first $25,000 of tangible personal property for every business. Lawmakers need to work harder, and smarter, if they really want to improve the wellbeing of mom-and-pop farmers and farmworkers across the state.

Amendment 3, Homestead Exemption and Non-Homestead Assessment Caps: No

Want to live in a kingdom where small towns have to beg the king for money? Amendment 3, colloquially known as the property tax cut amendment, would defund local governments at such a clip that even police and firefighter unions urge a “no vote” on the proposal.

Rushed at best, the amendment was drafted during a Ron DeSantis special session (this one was a whopping three days). A judge even threw out the original ballot summary and amendment title, forcing a similarly haphazard rewrite. Supporters say school taxes won’t be affected, but state economists estimate local governments would lose about $11.8 billion a year by 2031–32.

Amendment 3 has seen millions of dollars of support come in from the Florida Realtors lobby. It’s also a distraction from the real issue of property insurance, an industry that pumps money into lawmakers’ campaign funds and PACs.

Folks on both sides of the aisle increasingly rally against “big government.” This amendment is a hypocritical power grab that should embarrass its authors.