Property tax amendment leads to hiring freeze in Winter Springs

A looming overhaul of Florida’s property tax system has led Winter Springs to institute a hiring freeze. 

Winter Springs City Manager Kevin Sweet told commissioners Monday night that with the possibility of Florida’s tax-cutting Amendment 3 looming, every department funding through the general fund is on a hiring freeze. That means open positions will not be filled, and if staff members leave the city, many of those positions will not be filled. 

“We would need to be making some strategic decisions, and I think if we can get by from a staffing standpoint, at least within the general fund employees, then we’ll have a better sense of where things look at in November and make some strategic decisions at that point,” Sweet said. 

The departments under a hiring freeze include: administrative services, the finance department, communications, public works and development services, among others. 

Amendment 3 has two main impacts. First, it would increase the property tax exemption for homesteaded properties from the current $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and then to $250,000 in 2028; afterward, the exemption would increase with inflation. Those exemptions would not apply to taxes for schools.

The amendment only applies to a person’s homesteaded property; it does not apply to commercial property or, crucially, to rental properties. The bill would keep the annual increase in assessed property value from going up by more than 5% annually; currently, increases in value are capped at 10%.

Overall, Amendment 3 is expected to cut $233.1 million from Seminole County and its seven cities’ budgets in the second year. 

Winter Springs will arguably suffer the most in Seminole County. The city would lose $6.52 million in total: $2.38 million in 2027 and an additional $4.14 million in 2028. 

That’s a 38% cut in the amount of funding from property taxes, the highest percentage drop in funding in the county.  

In total, 70.4% of the city is homesteaded residential properties.

“Winter Springs has the highest number of parcels, percentage-wise, of properties that are homesteaded,” Seminole County Property Appraiser David Johnson said during a recent forum on Amendment 3.  That’s a decision the community made decades ago that they wanted this to be a wonderful place to raise families. And that certainly translates into the tax toll.”

Police department’s possible freeze spurs more debate

Commissioners questioned whether the hiring freeze will impact the police department, which is funded with property taxes. 

Currently, Sweet said the department is staffed with 61 sworn officers in fiscal year 2027, the same as the year prior. 

“Last thing I want to do is impact operations and [Winter Springs Police Chief Matt Tracht’s] ability to protect our community,” Sweet said. 

But the city had been considering adding five more officers. Now that will likely be two new officers hired instead of five.

“What’s it going to do to the overtime budget?” asked Commissioner Mark Caruso, a former corrections officer. 

“That will have impacts to the overtime budget,” Sweet replied.

“Exactly,” Caruso said. “… It’s going to cost more in overtime (than) to not have a hiring freeze on three (officers).” 

The other factor impacting Winter Springs is a recent decision to cut the property tax rate to what’s known as the rollback rate. 

City commissioners narrowly approved keeping the tax rate flat for the 2026-27 budget year. But despite keeping the tax rate flat, Winter Springs was projecting it will bring in an additional $435,376 more than last year because of increasing property values.

Florida lawmakers passed Senate Bill 4F this year, requiring any increase in revenue (an increase over what’s called the rollback rate) to get a supermajority vote in favor. Increasing above 110% of the rollback rate would require an even higher threshold to pass. Commissioners Caruso and Paul Diaz voted against going over the rollback rate — signaling that the final budget vote in September could ultimately fail. 

So Winter Springs cut an additional $435,376 from the budget. Caruso voted in favor of that cut. 

“If we just eliminated $400,000, that’s part of the unintended consequences of us lowering the budget,” said Commissioner Cade Resnick. 

One area that won’t be affected by the freeze? A new crew to help with stormwater and pond maintenance in Winter Springs. 

Commissioners voted to increase stormwater fees by $5 per month starting in October, in part to address issues relating to flooding.  Sweet said those stormwater and pond positions are funded with the fee increases, so those are on track to be hired. 

“We’ll still be moving forward with that,” Sweet said. “As I said, it’s really the impact is the general fund employees.” 

Winter Springs officials said they’re still finalizing the new  budget, but will then begin to plan how to handle possible budget cuts, if Amendment 3 ultimately gets 60% of the vote in November, the threshold for approval.

Commissioner Diaz said state lawmakers did not “go far enough” in cutting property taxes.

“The reality is that the modern political divide is not between Republicans and Democrats,” Diaz said. “It’s not even between liberals and conservatives anymore. It is between a self-serving administrative state that perpetually expands its own power. … I can tell you my entire life at this point, the bipartisan overspending, the regulatory overreach, unchecked bureaucracy has enriched a political class.”

Abe Aboraya is a Report for America corps member.