Amendment 3 would raise the homestead exemption from non-school property taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, with inflation adjustments afterward, and cut the annual cap on assessment increases for covered non-homestead property from 10% to 5%, according to a county explainer posted Oct. 26. The larger exemption would not apply at once to every new homeowner. Under the amendment's text, a person who claims a homestead on or after Jan. 1, 2027 and had not kept a permanent residence in Florida as of Dec. 31, 2026 would initially be exempt on up to $50,000 of assessed value for non-school levies, an amount adjusted each year for inflation starting Jan. 1, 2028 when consumer prices rise, before the full exemption applies beginning with the fifth year of the exemption. Starting in 2030, a county or city could shorten that wait for a critical local need by a two-thirds vote of its governing body. The amendment does not apply to school taxes, needs at least 60% of the statewide vote and would take effect Jan. 1, 2027.
The county's revenue figures are planning estimates measured against its current-law projection, not cuts in the budget commissioners adopted Sept. 29. Its explainer also describes a contingency-planning framework for a combined case in which Amendment 3 passes and the gas tax is not renewed. The county says that framework is not its operating budget, that the actions it identifies would not follow automatically from either vote, and that any of them would still be subject to budget, personnel, public-meeting and other legal requirements.
The gas tax question asks whether to continue the county's fifth- and sixth-cent local-option fuel tax, which the county describes as two cents a gallon on motor and diesel fuel. As the county quotes it, the ballot question would continue the tax "for a period of up to 30 years beginning January 1, 2028 through December 31, 2058." Those dates span 31 calendar years; the county's explainer and fuel-tax page give both without reconciling them. The tax was adopted by ordinance in 2008 and extended in 2020, and the current levy expires at the end of 2027. The ballot summary estimates average revenue of about $2.65 million a year; the county says the tax raised slightly over $2 million for local projects in 2024.
The ballot question says the money would fund transportation infrastructure, including road maintenance and new road construction. The revenue is shared between the county and its cities by population, with the county originally receiving about 89.3%. Besides debt service and grant-funded road work, the county says it pays for local projects including its obligations under the 2018 Regional Road Agreement with The Villages companies. The two questions are separate, and the county says it does not advocate for or against either.