CFO says Florida voters shouldn’t believe ‘big government apologists’ hype on property tax

Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia had a message for south Florida voters Wednesday:

Don’t believe the hype from “big government apologists” who claim cities and counties won’t be able to afford core government services if Gov. Ron DeSantis’ revamped property tax package is be approved by 60% of the voters in November.

Ingoglia, appointed CFO by DeSantis, has been making the case for months that local governments have engaged in wasteful spending for the last five years, creating the premise that cities and counties can absorb the financial hit that would come their way if the package passes.

Appearing at the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s Urban Search and Rescue Training Facility, Ingoglia focused his remarks on the property tax package the Legislature passed Tuesday and its effects on funding public safety.

“Scare tactics”

“The first thing I would say is, you’re going to hear a lot of scare tactics and misinformation coming out from a lot of different places in this fight,” he told reporters in Miami.

The ballot summary language in HJR 1F reads, “Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes.”

The ballot summary continues: “This amendment benefits Florida taxpayers by exempting homestead properties from taxation.” It goes on to advise voters that the proposal would exempt the first $250,000 of a homestead’s value from taxation and would require, through general law, “a schedule for full elimination.”

Ingoglia said that government’s first role is to protect the public, which is why the “first thing” that every local government should do if the proposal passes is to fund the police, firefighters, and other first responders.

“So, when I hear the misinformation and the talking points coming out from the big government apologists that say that they have to cut fire and they have to cut police, what they are saying is that that’s the last thing that they’re thinking about in the hierarchy of how they build their budgets,” he said.

Tampa City Councilmember Luis Viera, a Democrat, is running for the state House of Representatives, hoping to fill the Hillsborough County seat now held by House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell.

In his time on the council, Viera has been a strong advocate for pay increases for the Tampa Police Department and for securing funding for new fire stations.

He says that if the constitutional amendment is passed in November, “We’re going to see significant change in revenue for police and fire with this.”

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said last year that “every dollar of Tampa’s $380 million in property tax revenue is allocated to police and fire services,” and that the city’s total expenditures on public safety exceeded $455 million — well more than all of the revenue collected from property taxes.

No “trust fund” for public safety or schools

During the regular 2026 legislative session, the Florida House of Representatives passed its own property tax reduction plan (HJR 203). That proposal would have banned local governments from reducing funding for law enforcement below what had been appropriated for the services over the past two years. However, the Senate never considered the measure, or any other property tax relief bill, and it died.

DeSantis’ original tax proposal unveiled last week would have created in the Florida Constitution a local government trust fund so the state could help some municipalities pay for essential core services, including public safety and schools. But there was no dedicated source of revenue to finance the trust fund and the Republican-led Legislature eliminated it from the property tax plan.

Ingoglia didn’t mention the deleted trust fund during his South Florida press conference, ostensibly called to discuss hurricane preparedness. Instead, the CFO accused local government officials who claim public safety will need to be cut of bad governing.

“When I hear the misinformation and the talking points coming out from the big government apologists that say that they have to cut fire and they have to cut police, what they’re saying is, that that’s the last thing that they’re thinking about,” Ingoglia said. “That is the exact opposite of what they should be doing.”

The silence is deafening

Although Florida firefighters and emergency services responders spoke against the tax proposal in House and Senate committee this week, the Florida Sheriffs Association (FSA) and the Florida Police Chiefs Association have remained quiet. The Florida Police Chiefs Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment ,whereas the Sheriff’s Association affirmed it still had not taken a position.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce said in a written statement last week that it would review the proposal with its members.

Another major representative of the business community, Associated Industries of Florida, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NFIB of Florida, representing small businesses, said in a statement on its website that it had not taken a position but had called for protections that would prohibit local governments from increasing  taxes on commercial property to accommodate for lost revenues. Those protections were included.

“NFIB has NOT taken a position on the overall proposal, but we will be balloting our membership on the amendment if it is passed by the Legislature,” the website notes.

Although DeSantis and Ingoglia have been talking about reducing property taxes for more than a year, the framework for DeSantis’ plan wasn’t shared with legislators until last week. It was approved in Special Session F after just two days of debate this week.

To say the proposal was rushed rushed through the Legislature and not sufficiently vetted is “quite the understatement,” Viera said.

“The biggest issue that I think is going to worry people is public safety and first responders,” he said.

“As you know, in my nine-and-a-half years on city council, I’ve always been a  big champion of police and fire, and that includes on a lot of hard votes with cops and with fire, where I stand by them on a lot of different issues, and I think that, for me, supporting cops and firefighters is about more than showing up and giving them donuts on Christmas. It’s about taking hard votes and asking voters to fund those services that are tax dollars. If we pass this, this is going to be a major, major burden on basic police and fire services in Tampa.”