Ben Albritton on the future of property tax proposals in the Senate: ‘We’re still measuring’

With eight proposals on eliminating or cutting property taxes moving through the House and Gov. Ron DeSantis maintaining that none go far enough, many are looking more and more to the Senate for signs of what, if any, change could be coming.

As he’s done in months past, Senate President Ben Albritton is advocating for a cautious, unhurried approach.

“Honest to goodness, we’re still measuring,” Albritton told reporters Monday. “We’ve looked at the House proposals, and every one of those has a certain amount of cost to it and a certain amount of impact to Floridians.”

Albritton said that while the Senate is committed to delivering financial relief to Floridians in the form of property tax cuts or rollbacks, he and others in the chamber are cognizant that many core services at the local level stand to be adversely affected if it’s done carelessly.

“Every Floridian … depends on the fact that if they call 911, somebody comes to their place, somebody comes to help them,” he said. “We’ve got to be thoughtful about that.”

Asked whether the Governor has unilateral authority to redistribute funds derived from well-to-do counties like Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Orange to 29 fiscally constrained, mostly rural counties — as DeSantis has proposed doing — Albritton’s answer was more definitive: “No.”

“The Florida Legislature (is) given the power to appropriate. The Governor is certainly the chief executive. He has the ability to veto or be supportive. He has, I would say, the ability and the opportunity to be able to share perspective in his budget request and when he lays out the budget,” he said.

“The opportunity to backfill lies in the Legislature.”

On the idea of cash-strapped counties asking the state for funding annually that they’d otherwise generate locally, Albritton said it’s “certainly a concern.”

“Do I love the idea? Of course not,” he said. “But I (believe) affordability is a challenge, and providing some relief in the property tax space is a great way to do that, and especially for (homesteaded) Floridians … that’s great.”

Albritton pushed back on the idea that eliminating property taxes would lead to a “gold rush” of wealthy transplants to the Sunshine State, stressing that he is “optimistic” about the prospect despite its potentially negative effects.

“But it’s not that simple,” he said. “And that’s one of the things that I’m finding in that here again: Don’t take down a fence until you know why it was put up.”