Summary
To: Mayor & Commissioners
From: JP Murphy
Date: 6/12/2017
Subject:
Title
2017 Legislative Report
body
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Summary:
Legislative Report
The 2017 Legislative Session ended on May 8. A total of 3,052 bills were filed including 13 concurrent resolutions, 89 single chamber resolutions, 1,606 general bills, 70 local bills, 43 joint resolutions, 21 memorials and 1,210 appropriation projects. Of those, only 249 bills passed both chambers.
A full legislative report provided by the Florida League of Cities has been emailed to you. For the sake of brevity, the staff has excerpted a number of legislative changes that affect the town.
Expanded Homestead Exemption
HJR 7105 (House Ways and Means Committee) proposes an amendment to the state constitution to provide a homestead exemption, for all levies other than school district levies, on the assessed value of property greater than $100,000 and up to $125,000. This will have an estimated negative $644 million impact on cities, counties and special districts. Effective January 1, 2019, if approved by 60 percent of voters at the November 2018 general election. (Hughes).
Town Impact: Early estimates by staff, place this annual loss of ad valorem revenue to be in excess of $225,000 based on current values, if approved. The loss of this revenue, as well as the potential loss of the Penny for Pinellas, would amount to near $700,000 reduction annually, which would require some combination of service cuts, capital deferral, and tax & fee increases to balance future budgets. In millage terms, $700,000 is just a little over one mill of proceeds.
Implementation of New Homestead Exemption
HB 7107 (House Ways and Means Committee) implements the additional homestead exemption HJR 7105 by amending the dollar threshold in the statute to reflect the change in the constitution. Additionally, the bill provides that the rolled-back rate used by local gov...
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