[Music] The broadcast is now starting. All attendees are in listenonly mode. >> Good afternoon everyone. Today is October 16th, 2025. The time is now 5:49 p.m. This is our council workshop
regarding legislative initiatives for 2026. Now call this meeting to order. Madam clerk, please call the role. >> Councilwoman Corinoso, >> present. >> Council Pinedo, >> present. >> Councilwoman Dignell is not present. Vice Mayor Morin Porz here. Mayor Christie Fraga >> present. >> May you hop. >> All right. Please rise for the pledge of
allegiance led by vice mayor for >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
>> Okay everyone, good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. Um we would we called this meeting to have a quick discussion about our legislative priorities um in an effort to catch up with the legislative session, make sure that
things get uh to our Miami day delegation with time. Um there is an agenda that was circulated and a part of this uh backup that was part of this agenda which is 2026 legislative
priorities that has been prepared not just by my office and staff and with input from our lobbyists in Tallahassee but today um and I think it's going to be speculated right now in a very timely manner uh the Florida
House um members have filed eight bills on property tax reform which I think is one of our biggest priorities. Um and the speaker has put out a memorandum which you're all receiving right now. What we've done is put together
categorizing these eight bills into three sections and what their impacts are. I think this is going to be probably one of the largest parts of our conversation today. Um, but really the purpose of this workshop is to have uh more of a discussion format without
interrupting our regular scheduled meetings about what items we want to send up to Tallahassee. I think it's important that we speak with the United Voice. We've also uh included some of the appropriation requests that we have. Um, so I'll go ahead and open it up and see if anybody has additions. The the
idea after our conversation today is to bring forward an item at the November meeting which we'll place on the agenda based on the discussions we had today hopefully with pretty much what what you have in front of you which is the 2026 legislative priorities that have been prepared um but also taking into account
any additional discussions that we have. So with that I'll open up the floor and hear from my colleagues and we can just have kind of an open discussion. >> Have some comments. >> Yes my reports. Okay. Um, well, thank you, mayor, for doing this. This is actually, I think, a really great idea
to just kind of combine all of our legislative priorities and legislative ideas and just send them all at once. Obviously, you know, we're each going to have some, you know, diverse opinions about it. I think what has been proposed
is pretty solid. Um, I just want to also reiterate, you know, last month, and this is in regards to the property tax relief and the sales tax reform. Last month, I I did underscore the importance of providing much needed uh property tax
relief to our residents. And of course, in furtherance of that, I also proposed legislation in support of adding it um or adding a constitutional amendment to the Florida 2026 ballot. Um which of course would give the the power to
voters to decide on how to properly or how to do the reform here in Florida. So today, I'm really happy to see that um you know, it's on this and that that initiative to support responsible property tax reform is something that we
can send to Tallahassee. Just last week, I was actually with our legislators, including the House Speaker, and as you mentioned, he did just release a series of proposals for tax relief, which I think are really great. So with that, I
think that it's important to note that while property tax relief is necessary, it has to be very responsible. Um, obviously we need to continue protecting our essential services, which I think is something that the legislators whom I
met with, including again the speaker, I met with the co-chairs of the uh property tax committee, they also underscored that we needed to protect our um essential services. So I'm happy to see it here and you know there again there's a wide range. I would just
mention that um you know maybe like amending the draft language on property tax to support the entirety of the work that the legislaturator is doing as opposed to just limiting relief to a specific group like we have it here. So I don't know if
you guys are open to that and basically sending a message to the legislature that you know we would support something that's wider casting not just with the groups that are mentioned here. >> Okay. Anyone else? We can address some
of that in a minute. Anyone else? This So just to kind of go over um the bills that have been that were filed today. There's basically three categories. Um there's eliminations. Um House uh
House Bill 2011, which was proposed by uh Rep. uh Steel, eliminates non-school non-school homestead property taxes. That basically means that there would be no property taxes on homes for the
exception on um for the exception for school boards which is I think the biggest portion of the bill for for homeowners right now. The problem with that and I think we have a presentation. Yes. Do you have it? You want to put it up? I think it'll be easier to look at it. We we we
created this like in the last hour or so to try and make it >> Yes. to to try and make it more um understandable and and we could just digest a little bit better. So if we move to the next slide. So category one is eliminations. Um this is the most
extensive of all the reform packages uh with three proposals that would completely remove non-school property taxes from homesteaded. These measures offer uh substantial savings to homeowners um while presenting significant long-term funding challenges for cities and
counties that depend on advalorum revenues. So, we'll move on. Um, so here's the the big challenge with this is that eliminating a large portion of municipal and county operational revenues without specified replacement
sourcing um could could have rapid uh consequences for municipalities and for counties. We did a quick run of the numbers and I don't know uh is Fernando here? Yes, Fernando's here. And I actually did not prepare I didn't bring it, but I did in preparation for this
ask for um finance to run our what that would what that impact would look to our city. So if we were to eliminate homesteaded property taxes completely from our role, it's about $6 million today. Um which is not a huge hit for
our city, but would be significant be would require huge roll backs. um and and and and could could impact essential services if we don't see if we don't find a way to make up some of that revenue. For other municipalities, it could mean total destruction because
luckily we have um a strong income producing base with our commercial properties. So, this is something to definitely consider and think about as we continue to advocate for some type of reform and relief. I don't believe that this is necessarily the best option when
it comes to thinking about how we protect our police, fire, all the different incessional services, uh, from road maintenance to, you know, trolley services and everything that we provide for our our residents, parks programming. Um, this could have
detrimental impacts to services. Moving on to the next slide. These are the other two phased approaches to eliminating homesteaded property taxes completely. Um, one is House Bill 203 and House Bill 205
which were presented by Rep. Miller and Rep. Porus um from the day legislation u delegation sorry. So these also provide full exemptions but in a rolled out phase. Um we'll move on to the next
ones. We have two proposals that have additional exemptions which I think are much more reasonable. Uh go to the next slide please. So the first one is House Bill 207 by Rep. Abbott and House Bill 209 by
Rep. Busousara. Um both of these have reforms to increase the homes uh of exempt values based on assessments which I think are much more reasonable um and absolutely I think necessary in the reform that we
we we will see come forward and that we should be advocating for. So to address the comments um that vice vice mayor pores just made in our language moving forward I think we need to be very careful in how we structure our language
to urge a more wide cast net. I think we need to focus on the vulnerable populations. We need to focus on increased uh income levels so that there's more exemptions. We need to focus on increased exemption values. uh exemption
amounts for values. Um I think that's a much more responsible approach unless the legislature is going to take up reform on other taxes like the TDT tax which we have been advocating for for a long time unless there is a clear
understanding of where the the the revenues will come from and other taxes that are produced like sales tax within our city that the cities can keep. I'm very hesitant to move anything forward with a wide cast net. So I think that the legislation that we have proposed
here and this is some of the verbiage that I'm proposing that would be included in the resolution that will come forward in November is that we say um urging the Florida legislature to approve and replace and place before voters a constitutional
amendment on property tax reform that includes eliminating homestead property taxes for seniors 65 plus veterans and increase veterans and disabled and increasing homestead exemption amounts calling for the legislature to enact sales tax, hotel tax, and tourism tax
reform to allow municipalities to retain a portion of the revenues they generate. So, there needs to be a clear path on recovering some of those revenues if they do decide um to do a full homestead
exemption. And I'm going to ask the clerk if she can make a copy of this. This is a some of that language that we can incorporate. So, this one to me is the most important, I think, because it's the one that'll have the
most impact. Um, definitely I'm in I'm in favor of seeing reform and relief for our families, but I think we need to be responsible in how we advocate for it. It's very popular to say homestead, you know, that we should have pay no no property taxes, and I think there is a population that should qualify for that.
As a matter of fact, as a council member, I passed the long-term um homestead senior exemption, which basically means that seniors that live in our in their homes for more than 25 years have a certain assessed value, I think, of 250,000 and an income of
35,000 pay no taxes to our city. However, about only 20 homes in Dorado qualify for that because the thresholds are so low. So, I think what we need to advocate for at the state level is that those thresholds are increased. the income should be should be increased and the assessed values should be increased
so that more people qualify for it and that protects I think those vulnerable populations. So that's kind of my my take on it. Um we can expand on some of these things and and I plan to when I bring the resolution forward assuming we all agree on all these um when I bring the resolution forward in November I
will expand on some of the language that will be incorporated into some of these. Does anybody have any uh other comments about home rule or local authority? I think that's another very important one that we need to protect. Everyone's in agreement with that one
with home rule and local authority. >> Yeah. >> Home improvements and property insurance. >> I'll just mention one last thing. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I I'm very in support of the language that's here. I was just noting that the I think the memo from the
speaker says that they're probably not going to limit it to just one type of relief. They will again this is just based on the memo that was submitted. It's likely that they're going to have multip kind of like a multiple choice on the ballot is what it sounds like to me.
So it may be um you know giving voters multiple options and then obviously voters deciding. So, I just wanted to mention that because it may be a lot wider than what we're putting here, but this is absolutely um something I can stand behind. And if you guys want to
keep it that way, that's fine. But I just wanted to mention that. Okay. Yeah. I just don't want to cast I I don't want our our city to stand behind something as a as a official position that's more wide net because I think I I do think it would be detrimental not just to less to
us than to other cities but I think it sends the wrong message um because say something like that does go on the ballot I think it would it would be irresponsible of us to go out and advocate openly for something that we know um will affect services to a
community that needs it and and and what I've been telling people um when I'm asked about it is I do I do think there needs to be reform but a a total elimination of property taxes homesteaded or or or
fully which was talked about at one point which is kind of crazy um is the most inequitable tax reduction or tax break that can happen because the people who really do use our services are the ones that would get the least amount of savings um and so that's very concerning
the ones that use our services the most. Whether it's our silver club, whether it's the special needs um services, whether it's the free transportation, which are all things that would potentially be at risk of being cut, are the ones that are used by the people
that get the least relief. Um you're looking at people with very high income levels and very large property tax bills receiving very large relief who most likely are not the ones that use the services as much. So I think that that's my largest concern and I think how we
need to uh curate our messaging when talking about property tax reform very much u explaining that we are we are behind moving forward on some type of reform and I think it needs to be in the form of increased
exemptions um to to everyone and then completely exempting vulnerable populations which are 65 plus special needs or disabled veterans um and even widows could be uh one that's included. So, I'll leave this legis
um it it it reflects a lot of the resolution you had brought forward uh Vice Mayor Porz. So, I just added additional language and I think that's what we'll kind of incorporate and that was my intent to incorporate in in what we prepared for here today. Um
that's really my only comments. I think that for me that one's the biggest one. I'm comfortable with everything that was proposed by staff. Um the appropriations that were approp were were proposed by staff most and a lot of it is for public safety and PD
and um that's pretty much it. There was not much more that we felt we really needed to communicate. But I think all of these are important for our our lobbying team to have and for us to be conscious of and uh tracking as they
go through the legislative process. >> Yep. >> Through the mayor. I have a comment. >> Councilwoman Reynoso. >> Thank you. So, I would agree with maintaining a unified message whenever we do talk about um the changes that may come along.
And what I'm concerned about is relocating essentially the impact of taking taxes or fees from let's say our property taxes and figuring out a different way to essentially implement the same. So
that's my overall concern and I am concerned about the future of seeing a lot of our programs be in jeopardy because of these cuts, especially since it's taken a really long time and through the courses of the years to curate the programs that we
have for our seniors, for our special needs, the infrastructure that we have, the parks that we have. So I think a unified message approaching representatives that have the opportunity to change and impact the
policies at a state level. We we all need to have the same message. It's the only way to show strength and it's the only way to show that um we have analyzed the situation and we understand the impacts that this may cause to our community. And at the end of the day,
this is us advocating for services and for our residents on a much much deeper level that really only those that sit on this council have the ears of those that can make change. So those are my comments.
>> Thank you. I uh Counciloman Bato. >> No, go ahead. >> Thank you, mayor. Well, first of all, I want to thank you for bringing this forward. I think it's u by looking at the proposed resolution I think it covers what I think I believe is it will
be reasonable by based on the information that we have right now coming from Tallahassee but as as councilwoman Renoso mentioned I I certainly do share the same the same concerns because I mean I we're talking about the city of Dorado which I believe
it will be it will be great to have the the numbers I do believe It's a little bit more if we go with a full I mean if for example the resolution the one about the full elimination the the 2011
I believe the number that we will be looking here at the city it will be between 11 and 19 million to run that number 11 million >> so if it's homesteaded properties if Fernando you want to come up what we ran was and I believe none of the proposals
completely eliminates uh property taxes which is >> in our thing. Right. But just to have an idea on >> but it would eliminate homesteaded properties. >> Correct. >> And so when we ran the numbers on homesteaded properties, Fernando. >> Yeah. Hi. Um Fernando Kasmayor,
assistant city manager, CFO. Good evening, uh council members, madame mayor. Um so yes, uh councilman, the mayor's numbers are pretty accurate. Uh we estimated 5.6 million based on current tax role. Obviously, there's going to be growth for next year as
well. We hope, we assume. So, the $6 million number is correct. And and the mayor was absolutely right when she said the impact for Dural is actually it's bad, but it's not as bad. There are other municipalities out there that do not have the diversity of different
property types that we do. That would be completely devastated. We're we're talking about deincorporation at that point. Absolutely. >> Thank you. And that and that's why for example when we look at Miami date county as a county
>> you're looking the county is about what three billion dollars what they receive from property taxes in revenues approximately but rough I mean that's >> yeah so total taxable and this will include the school board was about $10 billion
um for last year. So that's all property taxes collected. Um, if you take the school board out of it with all municipalities or whatever, yeah, it I'm assuming it the numbers about accurate. I don't know what the county's impact would be if any of these proposals come.
I don't work there anymore, so not my issue, but it would be devastating right >> there. Countywide there are about 804,000 homestead properties. >> So, thank you. >> Just to clarify, the the 5.6 Six to six
million is only homestead property in Durell. >> Correct. >> Yes. Homestead properties in Durell. >> Actually, I'm going to see if we can can you do me my office >> just and just to add something else because the reason why I'm I'm mentioning the county is because we also
have to remember that if something like this move forward, obviously the county offers some of the services as well. >> So the county as a government will have to find a way to >> fire would take a devastating hit. waste. I mean there's a lot of >> but not only that I mean the other
services will increase their fees. >> The other thing they haven't addressed in any of this is the bonded >> right. >> Um yes the other thing we have that hasn't been addressed by the state is the bonded the bond you know the debt bonded debt right you can't >> Yes. Correct. So again, general
obligation debt and for Dural, we do have our parks program. For other municipalities, there's other general obligation type debts. >> I haven't read the legislation that's been filed, but if that's not exempted, a we have to pay our debts. Um the
mechanism to pay that debt is you set a millage rate based on the amount of payment that are that is due with the property value. If if the legislature were to eliminate all property taxes, at that point only our business community
would be paying for our parks debt and future offerings. So granted, we just recently passed this bond, but in 20 years, the people that are sitting up there and whoever's sitting down here may need to do this in order to do
additional additional infrastructure improvements. and that mechanism for general obligation debt would not be available. >> Yeah. I think the the most important thing as this move forward is our our communication needs to be very clear because it this has horrible
implications if it goes to an extreme. Um and so while I think we advocate responsibly for the reform, we do need to understand the impacts of it because it is detrimental and and people voted for um to have a a municipality make a copy of this. This is everything.
>> I I can >> Okay, perfect. Um, people voted to have a municipality because of the services that we offer, right? It's having the response time we have with police. And there's been a lot of different discussions. I've talked to a lot of legislators and and I think it's important that they understand um as
much as we want to say that it's not going to impact, you know, the essential services, cuts like this would absolutely impact on cities like ours that would survive would impact the services. or what's going to end up happening is some municipalities will have to increase their millage rates so
that the income producing properties can cover the differences. Um and and at the end of the day it's a domino effect that'll trickle down again and uh basically people who need the relief like renters which are the incomeroucing properties will end up paying more. And so who's really getting the tax who's
really getting the break? Not the people that need it the most. It's the more wealthy. And that's that's I think the biggest concern um is making sure that it is an equitable relief for all who need it, especially the middle middle class um our seniors. So I I think we
have to be very responsible about how we communicate this message because it can be very it can be a very attractive message. One of the things I haven't heard come out of the state's uh legislative priorities yet is is uh property is um property insurance and that is something that has even impacted
us. So, property insurance should be at the top of the list of how they're going to address the, you know, the impacts to quality quality of life because I I can tell you I know personally people that are paying triple what they were paying and that is something that um affects
every single property owner um and the state does have control over and I haven't seen them address it to the severity of speaking about property tax relief which doesn't necessarily impact them completely. So I think this is a a popular message but a dangerous one if
we if we go down the wrong path. So I'm going to have this pass to you. This is something that I asked finance to prepare in preparation for this because when we go to Talahasi this is some of the data I want to use. So we have a chart um I had them chart our population
growth in comparison to our budget um and the trend and I think we've been right on track. So I I do want to share this with you all. It shows again our population growth over the last 23 years
um and our budgeting growth and that the trend of our growth uh the budget growth is on trend with our population growth which is extremely important because those are the things that do do is talking about is to making sure that cities are not growing outside of their means and outside of the population
growth. Nobody can argue that DAR has had tremendous population growth in the last 15 years. Um, and our budget has not surpassed or been out of proportion of our population growth. And I think that's extremely important to review and look at, but we do have to trend care
tread carefully over the next couple of years. I've had the conversation with staff. I've had the conversation with finance. Um I know that administration will be having it with the the rest of staff very soon as we prepare for the next budget cycle because we do you know we don't want to enter into any hot
water. Additionally we ran the numbers as I as I mentioned to everyone of the total value of homestead exemptions in Dorado. It's um actually um Fernando I
have here total all Dorado millages 6.9 6.9 million. >> Yeah, that includes the debt millage that >> Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. That does include the debt millage. So, the total for You're absolutely right. The total for the non bonded is 5.4. You were right on the money. >> Correct.
>> I was looking at the wrong number. Thank you. So, yeah, she um I think Marion's making copies of this. So, here we have total value of senior homesteaded properties. So if just senior homesteaded properties, every single household with senior homestead was exempt from paying municipal taxes, it
would be $61,000. So about the same amount of money we budgeted for our grants this year to senior homesteaded property. So we're we're returning that money to to our vulnerable population already. Um total value of veteran exemption properties,
it's 153,000. and total value of seniors and veteran population would be a total of 215,000. So not not not unreasonable at all. Not unreasonable. So I'm going to have this shared with all of you because I think it's an important um an important
document to look at and thank you finance for preparing this very helpful. I will be using that in Tallahassee. Appreciate it. Um and we're going to circulate that. Anybody else have any comments from the administration? through the mayor. Mayor, just I I
wanted to make sure at the end of the legislative priorities are the the appropriations that we're going to request and I just wanted to make sure that everybody's on board. >> Yes, I do have one more I want to add. After conversations with um state representative um Juan Carlos Porz at
our HOA um information session, he talked about requesting some funding for fraud investigations for police department. He was very particular about not calling it home, you know, homeowner association investigations or but um you
know, focusing on fraud prevention for police. So, I would like to add that in there as well. Um, we can we've been in communication with his office and they're going to they were going to send us some suggestions um of funding amounts and I have been in conversation with Representative Rizzo. I haven't been able to talk to Representative uh
Boredo yet um about sponsoring that that appropriation. Um, so I I think we're going to move forward on asking for that and it would be really funds to um approach um economic fraud and crime um in a more
intentional way, maybe identified to a detective or someone that we could maybe hire for additional um focus on fraud prevention for our community. So that's the other one I wanted to add.
Okay, mayor. We'll have the police department draw some. Thank you. >> Any other comments? >> I have a quick question on form. >> So, once we resubmit this, how are we submitting it? Is it a resolution per
thing? >> I'm I'm going to bring one resolution that will have this as part of the backup. >> Okay. >> So, then this resolution for >> incorporate it into the resolution. So, I'll work with Lorenzo. We'll work on a on a resolution that will encompass all
of this. And then my idea is to write a letter on behalf of all of us with all of our names on the letter head and send it to our entire delegation. Um, make sure our our lobbyists receive it and um and move forward on on making sure then
when we go up to Tallahassee that we all are kind of communicating the same message. Yeah, very important. Mayor, also if I can suggest I I know other municipalities do it and if you want to do it as well, do you we can post uh have them on the website somewhere where
the public can access them and see what they are? >> Yes. Thank you. >> That's good. >> Yep. All right, that's pretty much it. >> Any other comments? I don't know if staff or anybody any of the department directors want to add anything. I know
everybody had input on this. Nothing else. Okay. If there is nothing else and everybody is good with this, we will proceed on creating the resolution and bringing it forward in November. Regardless, I'm having Mario make I should have made copies. I'm sorry. I forgot about it, but I it's been on my
desk now for like two months. So, I will have um this set get received um to each of your offices in just a couple minutes. So, you have it because I think it's great information. >> Okay. >> Anything else? >> Good job, Mayor. >> All right. Thank you.
>> Thank you very much. This uh I just need a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion. >> Motion. Motion to adjurnn by council member Pito. Second by council Rosa. Reoso. All in favor say I. >> I.