Governor Says He's Working On Property Tax Rebates

By Christine Sexton, Florida Phoenix

June 10, 2025

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that he was still working to get Florida homeowners a rebate on their property taxes this year, even though budget chiefs for the Legislature said they remain unaware of any formal proposal to that end.

DeSantis earlier this year called on legislators to offer a rebate up to $1,000 to every homeowner who enjoys a homestead exemption as a first step in helping residents deal with property taxes. The governor suggested sending out checks at the end of 2025.

At the time, he offered up the suggestion as an alternative to House Speaker Daniel Perez’s initial $5 billion plan to cut the state’s sales tax rate by 0.75%.

But following a protracted budget dispute between the House and Senate, the sales tax reduction is no longer being considered. Instead, the Legislature is now considering a much smaller mix of permanent and one-time tax cuts including eliminating the sales tax on commercial leases.

During an event in Crawfordville to award a job growth grant to Wakulla County, DeSantis talked again about helping out homeowners with property taxes.

“We are working on this right now,” DeSantis said. “We want to do a property tax rebate this year. We’re working with the Senate on the budget, on getting that through. I think that’s really important for people.”

But Sen. Ed Hooper, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who is involved in budget negotiations, said DeSantis hasn’t shared details..

“As of right now, I have not seen a formal proposal or solution; we’ve kind of been busy,” Hooper told reporters following an afternoon budget conference meeting.

Rep. Lawrence McClure, the House budget chair, also said he had not seen a proposal regarding a property tax rebate.

DeSantis’ comments came just as legislators entered their final round of negotiations on a new budget for the fiscal year beginning on July 1. The House and Senate were at odds for weeks over how much spending to authorize in the coming year and what kind of tax cuts they would endorse.

The plan is to finalize work on the budget this week with a final vote coming no later than June 16. That’s about two weeks before the start of the next fiscal year.

DeSantis has been calling on legislators to take action on property taxes for months now. While he has not rolled out any detailed proposals, he has continually floated the idea of eventually eliminating property taxes for every resident who is eligible for an homestead exemption.

DeSantis mentioned Monday that it would cost roughly $300 million to take that step for the state’s 31 small and rural “fiscally constrained” counties — an amount he said the state could offer those counties.

In other budget news, legislators are looking to pour more money into expanding a bonus program for law enforcement officers who participate in federal immigration enforcement.

For the first time in the negotiation process on Monday, the House included in its criminal and civil justice offer $3 million for a one-time bonus program that the Legislature passed after the series of tumultuous special sessions on immigration earlier this year.

Although there haven’t been any bonuses awarded from the $250 million that lawmakers and DeSantis agreed on in February, the chambers want to make correctional officers who work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement eligible for the bonuses of up to $1,000.

Florida county jails and law enforcement agencies have hundreds of agreements with ICE to serve warrants for people already in custody, but also to arrest people suspected of living in the country illegally; they can remain in jail for up to 48 hours before immigration officials take custody.

As immigration enforcement efforts ramped up in the state and reports of overcrowding at ICE detention centers emerged, the federal agency announced in April that it would start housing immigrants awaiting deportation at the Glades County Detention Center, which could increase the supply of beds in the state by up to 500, according to ICE.

The Biden administration limited the use of that jail to house immigrants in 2022 because of concerns related to medical care, according to the Miami Herald.

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