A county commissioner, a think tank analyst, and a proponent of the measure discussed Amendment 3 on WSLR’s Talk of the Town.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: September 15 2026
Host: WSLR’s Talk of the Town last Saturday addressed Amendment 3. That’s the state-initiated constitutional reform effort to cut property taxes. The panel, hosted by Carrie Seidman, included a sitting county commissioner opposed to the measure, a think tank analyst, and a proponent of the measure who is running for the state legislature. We are reproducing the highlights of the debate.
From left to right: Martin Hyde, Holly Bullard, George Kruse, Carrie Seidman
Johannes Werner: State economists expect the impact in the first five years to be in the range of $46 billion counties and cities will fail to collect. Florida Policy Institute analyst Holly Bullard put that in context.
Holly Bullard: $46 million is over a third of our state budget. It’s a tremendous amount of money with no plan to back that up. That’s actually baked into this amendment.
JW: The bill adopted by the legislature actually includes language that would allow to expand or even end property taxes for homesteads entirely without any additional referendums.
Holly Bullard
HB: It also instructs the legislature to have a pathway to complete homestead elimination. That’s really important to know, too—baked into this is an instruction to eliminate all homestead property taxes. That includes very wealthy individuals with very big houses.
JW: That $46 billion loss would affect each county and city differently. Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse outlined the possible effects in his neck of the woods. Manatee collects about $500 million a year in taxes from homesteaded properties. He argues that $430 million of that revenue is tied up in mandatory spending, and only $30 million is discretionary.
George Kruse: When we have conversations during this discussion about tightening our belt, we’re not talking about tightening our belt on $500 million. We’re not talking about tightening our belt on the one-point-something billion dollars of collective taxes inclusive of the school board. We’re talking about tightening our belt on $30 million. $430 million of it is constitutional officers, it’s the court systems, it’s the state attorney, it’s contractual bond obligations, it’s debt service. We have $30 million left for everything else that provides a quality of life for every citizen in Manatee County. But Amendment 3, in the very first year it would be implemented, results in $70 million less in property taxes in Manatee County to squeeze out of that $30 million.
[Audience laughs]
George Kruse and Carrie Seidman
Carrie Seidman: I’m bad at math, but that doesn’t work very well.
GK: It does not. So anyone who says that public safety is protected, the constitutional officers are protected—they’re lying to you. It’s physically impossible. Math has to math at the end of the day, and I think everybody on both sides can agree with that. The impact to the citizens of Manatee County is going to be a significant reduction in what your priorities are. It’s going to be a question of, “Do we completely eliminate some people’s priorities who are still taxpayers, or do we trim everybody’s priorities down?”
JW: Kruse said the winners of Amendment 3 would be developers and mansion owners.
GK: Anyone who says that this is for affordability is also lying to you because the people who are going to be most negatively affected by this are the very people who need that affordability, but the developers, the people in the large houses—the people who own the major properties, they are going to come out tremendously well on this initiative at the expense of everybody in Manatee County’s quality of life.
JW: Martin Hyde, a frequent critic of local governments who is running for the Florida Senate, admitted that Amendment 3 is not perfect, but he said it’s necessary given recent growth of county and city budgets.
Martin Hyde
Martin Hyde: Well, it’s not a perfect answer, but—George talks about “Anybody that disagrees is lying.” Numbers don’t lie.
JW: Hyde said Manatee County’s and Sarasota County’s budget growth since the pandemic has been out of proportion to population growth and inflation. And most of it is driven by growing the payroll of local governments. He also pointed out later that the growth of law enforcement budgets does not match trends in crime.
Hyde said that Amendment 3 would address affordability challenges for homeowners who live on a fixed income.
MH: One thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet: Homestead hasn’t been increased in 18 years. 18 years is a very long time. You go back 18 years and look at the value of your property—look at how many people have been drawn into the net—and ask yourself whether you can leave a number the same for that long.
JW: Kruse, the county commissioner, responded by challenging voters to get him out of office and that it should ultimately be a local decision what counties should spend money on.
Martin Hyde and George Kruse
GK: The points you’re making—let’s hypothetically say—are valid relative to growth of budgets. Since COVID, we’re now in our third election cycle. Vote us out of office. Go pick people who are more cognizant of it. There’s 67 counties. There’s 411 cities. Vote people out of office. If people are wasting your money, they don’t deserve to have your money. I 100% agree. Take them out. Run yourself, if you’re fiscally conservative, and fix the budget yourself. But that’s a local decision. If the same people keep getting voted in, that means the people who are voting for them appreciate the quality of life they’re given. I’ve never talked to anyone—well, not “anyone”. That’s an absolute. There’s people who literally don’t want any taxes—but most people want to pay taxes for things that they deem to be beneficial to themselves. They just want their money to be used responsibly.
JW: He also pointed out the difference between a law and a constitutional amendment.
GK: Twice, you mentioned “This is not perfect.” It damn well better be perfect. This is not a statute. This is not some frivolous little law that’s going to get a glitch bill next year, next session. This is a constitutional amendment we’re talking about here. This literally fundamentally changes the future of the state of Florida with no recourse to pull back on it. Once this is in the constitution, we’re stuck with it.
JW: To watch the full video of the Talk of the Town discussion on Amendment 3, go to youtube.com/watch?v=npwq8DErqws.
For WSLR News, this is Johannes Werner.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6pm.