As flood waters washed across parts of South Florida on Election Day, shutting down polling sites in eight counties and forcing them to relocate, voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to cut property taxes that help pay to fight high waters.
The public, local officials say, may now face a dire reckoning when it comes to aging flood infrastructure increasingly overwhelmed by more severe flooding.
“ Local governments aren't gonna have the money any longer. The county's not gonna have the money any longer,” Broward County Commissioner Steve Gellen said during a break Thursday at the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Conference in Fort Lauderdale. “We're gonna be underwater. I suggest people grow gills because we're not gonna be able to fund the resiliency.”
READ MORE: Amendment 3 could worsen South Florida flooding woes, say experts
By raising homestead exemptions to $150,000 next year and $250,000 the following year, counties and cities stand to lose billions in property taxes that typically flood stormwater and flood control structures.
Yet Florida voters, even in the most floodprone areas like Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties overwhelmingly approved the amendment.
Even Tampa area voters heartily endorsed the cuts. Only voters in Leon and Alachua counties, home to the state’s biggest universities, rejected the measure. The vote was a draw in tiny Gadsden County in the Panhandle.
Supporters of Amendment 3, including Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, argue that property tax revenue collected by governments has nearly doubled in the past seven years and help homeowners combat the rising cost of living.
In South Florida, the water management district that covers about a third of the state encompassing 16 counties and provides flood control for about 9.3 million people is expected to lose $415 million over the next five years. The district maintains the sprawling regional system that acts as the primary drainage network.
Counties, cities and smaller drainage districts maintain smaller systems that act as the first line of defense. And officials worry those aging systems are running out of time.
In recent years, as climate impacts have worsened flooding, they’ve sped up effort to plan and construct bigger systems. Now, the tax cut and staggering losses in funding will need to be factored in.
Over the next five years, according to a state analysis, Miami-Dade County is expected to lose $3.5 billion. Broward County will see $2.1 billion less in property tax revenue and Palm Beach County will lose $2.5 billion in Palm Beach County.
“The only reason that we've received federal authorization to fix our canals, and now we're hoping to get the funding, is because Broward County put $5 million into our budget to fund half,” Geller said. ”There's gonna be a very rude awakening on the part of the voters when they see how badly this is gonna hurt.”
Municipalities within the counties are also bracing for steep losses.
“ I'm very concerned because the city has a stormwater master plan that needs to be accelerated,” said Adam Roberti, who was elected to the Hollywood City Commission on Tuesday to represent the city’s western neighborhoods. ”The majority of our district is still on septic, including my house, including my parents' house. And when I tell folks that this phased plan is going to have our neighborhoods connected to sewer in mid-2040s or early 2050s, they're like, ‘I'm gonna be dead by then.’"
The cuts could also jeopardize a massive county plan to update flood control structures that help control water in 1,800 miles of canals crisscrossing the county. Because its flood gates and pumps are located further inland, the eastern side is more vulnerable to flooding made worse by sea rise, particularly during king tides.
In the three days leading up the election, parts of Broward received nearly a foot of rain, the National Weather Service Miami officer reported. Palm Beach Gardens received 15 inches in a single day.
”Most of the canals are maintained by groups like the Plantation Flood Control District or the South Broward Flood Control District, which are almost entirely funded by property taxes,” Geller said. “So that means nobody is going to be able to dredge or clean the canals anymore unless the services fairy or maybe the canals fairy comes along. But the voters seem to be placing a lot of faith in fairies that will provide services without payment.”
Those canals feed into the larger flood control network constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decades ago and now largely operated by the South Florida Water Management District. The sprawling system stretches from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, helping to control drainage up and down the coast.
Over the years, the district has consistently lowered its taxing rate and cut staff by more than 300 positions. But that’s left it scrambling to keep up as flooding needs rise.
In his budget summary this year, district executive director Drew Bartlett said critical flood control infrastructure, historically paid for with ad valorem taxes, had been unfunded for years, creating a $3 billion backlog. Two years ago, when a critical pump broke, the legislature had to send $44 million. Altogether in 2024, legislators needed to send $150 to keep up with critical repairs.
“This week we saw a few structures that were quite in trouble,” said Irela Bague, who served on the district governing board in the early 2000s and was Miami-Dade County’s first Chief Bay Officer.
”These climate challenges are not gonna go away. They're just gonna get worse,” she said. “So there really needs to be a concerted effort and a very intentional look at how are we going to keep now [nine] million people from flooding.”
In addition to flood control, the district also splits the cost of the massive Everglades restoration plan, now expected to cost more than $26 billion. Once projects are completed, the district alone covers the cost of maintenance and operation of structures.
”The district is now in a position where they're gonna have to prioritize projects based on that, based on their central critical mission of protecting people and property,” Bague said. ”And what takes the backseat? That's the question.”
