The Broward County Commission voted Tuesday to cut the annual property tax rate, a mostly symbolic move that won’t lower anyone’s bills but will keep them from going up as high as they could have — probably by less than a dollar.
Overall, the new rate cuts anticipated revenues by about $1.02 million, a sliver of a fraction of a $2 billion budget that includes $30 million added to the county’s reserves, the emergency fund that will be drawn from to handle unanticipated expenses that arise throughout the year.
Most homeowners will still see a tax bill increase because property values went up compared to last year. But Broward has not cut its property tax rate since 2017, and with the county finally paying off a 20-year debt obligation, the time seemed ripe to send a message to taxpayers that they were not being taken for granted, rate-cut supporters said.
“My goal was to reduce the millage rate and start bending the curve downward,” said County Commissioner Michael Udine, who spearheaded the effort. “And we were able to do it while providing record funding for the Broward Sheriff’s Office and for affordable housing.”
As small as the rate cut will prove to be for each taxpayer, the debate leading into the change was substantial. Udine’s first effort to cut the rate, at a commission meeting earlier this month, fell short in a 5-3 vote, with one commissioner missing.
Under state law, the rate has to be approved by at least six members of the commission. Otherwise it drops to what’s called the “rollback rate,” the amount required to achieve the same revenue after accounting for the increase in property values. Hypothetically, a homeowner’s tax bill would be unchanged from one year to the next if the rollback rate were to be adopted, and an anticipated revenue increase of an estimated $120 million would vanish, forcing major cuts and spending freezes.
Commissioners were compelled to reach agreement on either cutting the rate or holding it steady, and though initially there were not enough votes for a cut, there were also not enough to keep last year’s rate.
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Commissioner Steve Geller said he first opposed cutting the rate because it would reduce the county’s ability to contribute to its reserve “rainy day” fund. He also anticipated a financial downturn that will ultimately force a future commission to raise the tax rate.
But when it became clear there weren’t enough votes to maintain the status quo, Geller agreed to support a cut as long as the reserves would remain healthy, an assurance he received from County Administrator Monica Cepero.
The cut passed with a 7-2 vote against a political backdrop that continues to see Gov. Ron DeSantis pointing to Broward as an example of a county with a “bloated” budget that’s taking advantage of rising property values to get more money while claiming to hold the line on tax increases.
“They’ve had no net population increase in the last five years, and their budget has gone up 60%,” DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday. He did not cite any examples of wasteful spending in Broward, but the state’s government efficiency audits are continuing.
“Do you want to keep getting taxed so they can fritter away your money?” the governor asked.
Local elected officials have predicted the audits would not find examples of waste other than those that are the result of different political priorities. More than half of Broward’s budget goes to law enforcement, and the recent addition of the Tax Collector as an elected office with its own staff put an $80 million burden on the county that only started last year.
Geller has likened efforts to slash county budgets as “defund-the-police” moves, arguing that county spending cannot be cut without targeting spending on public safety.
Those arguments about spending priorities are bound to intensify as the state’s “DOGE” audits lead to pressure to cut property tax rates even more in the years to come.
Staff writer Anthony Man contributed to this report.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457. Follow him on Threads.net/@rafael.olmeda.
