Property Tax Cut Is Here, Who Will Whine First?

Floridians were loud and clear about wanting property tax relief. In Tuesday's election, 64 percent of the voters - 2.5 million - supported Amendment 1, which doubles the homestead exemption, allows portability of Save Our Homes and provides tax relief to businesses. Now we can brace for the fallout.

The big worry with most Floridians is how it will affect fire and law enforcement service, schools and county services. The other worry is that local governments will increase taxes to fill those budget holes.

We hope our local governments do not raise one tax to offset cuts. Obviously voters wanted a big cut, and they got it. We all should experience the pain of those cuts, or see that it wasn't so painful after all. Either way, Floridians should understand that there are trade-offs. There's always a price for everything.

There was no way a property tax cut proposal was going to fail. A tax cut always is supported at the ballot box in Florida. No one wants to pay more taxes. Almost all of us feel like we're pinched enough for this and that. So it only makes sense that voters would support such a cut, even if we know it might not be best for our communities.

The problem, of course, is that contrary to what most people think, our local government does not have a lot of fat to trim. Perhaps in the past it did, but we believe Highlands County has always ran lean - often too lean.

A lot of people look at how much more revenue the county is taking in compared to just a few years ago and believe county employees are rolling in dough. The truth, though, is that this county ran lean for so long that a lot of things were in disrepair or in drastic need of improvement. Just look at Animal Control to see what a lean budget leaves - inhumane conditions.

So as we move forward and see our counties, schools, cities, firefighters, EMS and others operate on less, what's going to give? Will the same people who voted for this tax cut be the biggest complainers? We hope not.