This election season, voters could approve funding for land and water conservation in seven Florida counties. Marion County is one of them.
There, voters will decide on a referendum that would authorize the county to issue up to $140 million in bonds — a form of long-term debt — to pay for parks and trails, plus efforts to protect farms, forests and water resources. The bonds would be funded with a property tax of up to 0.35 mills, or up to $35 per $100,000 in taxable property value.
RELATED: On the ballot: Bonds to fund parks, trails and land conservation in Marion County
Marion County voters will decide the local ballot question just as voters statewide determine the fate of Amendment 3, a proposal advanced by state lawmakers that would — for some homeowners — eliminate non-school property taxes over the next two years.
By fiscal year 2028-29, Florida counties would lose more than $5 billion in property tax revenues under Amendment 3, according to the Florida Association of Counties’ statewide estimate.
Local governments have warned approving the proposal would require dramatically reducing many core public services, from emergency response and law enforcement to libraries and parks. In order to keep providing as much public infrastructure as possible, governments would just have to enact new taxes and fees to replace property tax revenues, detractors of Amendment 3 maintain.
RELATED: Public safety leaders urge Floridians to vote no on Amendment 3
Meanwhile, property taxes remain high statewide, threatening affordability, especially for people living on fixed incomes.
More growth, more need for parks
Kids jumped around and laughed on the playground at Baseline Trailhead Park, just south of Ocala, on a recent, cool weekday morning.
Caution tape hung from one playground structure. Below, rips were visible in some sections of the slightly bouncy safety surfacing material covering the ground. The safety surfacing has “exceeded its expected life” and may no longer meet industry standards, according to the capital improvement plan Marion County recently adopted.
Improvements to this park and at least a dozen others are outlined in Marion County’s plans for how to spend the proposed bonds, should voters approve them. At least 70% of funds would be spent on capital improvements, a category that includes the design, engineering, permitting and construction of amenities for existing and new, future parks.
Park and trail upgrades are especially necessary in light of the county’s fast-growing population, said Lauren Debick. She chairs Protect Marion 2026, the political action committee advocating for the referendum.
“As more people start to come to this community, more people are using the facilities. They're using the parks, they're using the outdoor spaces,” Debick said. “The wear and tear is going to continue.”
Ocala was the country’s fastest-growing metro area from 2024 to 2025, according to Census data released this year.
Debick said she thinks Marion County’s natural spaces, including parks, are helping drive that growth. Certainly, the area’s nature motivated her own move here from Ohio, about 17 years ago.
“I definitely moved here for the quality of life, to be outside,” Debick said. “When I first moved here, this park is one of the first ones I found, because I was looking for some paved trails to go rollerblading.”
Beyond the backlog of needs piling up at Marion County’s existing parks, the area’s growth is also fueling demand for new parks, Debick said. “There is a real need for parks in areas that are experiencing high growth that don't have parks.”
Many of Marion’s 55 existing parks were funded by “Pennies for Parks,” a $20 million bond program voters approved in 1988. At that time, voters approved a property tax hike of up to 0.5 mills to cover the cost of paying back the bonds. The county stopped collecting that earlier property tax in 2015.
The proposed bonds of up to $140 million could help Marion acquire land for new parks and protected areas: either by buying land outright, or entering into conservation easements with landowners who agree to sell their land’s development rights.
At least 10% and no more than 20% of program funds would be used for that purpose, according to Marion County: for “the strategic acquisition of land and protection of forests, working farms, our springs, rivers and lakes.”
On Marion’s west side, specifically, county staff have identified a parks “deficiency.” Should voters approve the proposed bonds, they would help fund two new regional parks, one each for northwest and southwest Marion County.
Preserving Marion's 'rural character'
Driving through northwest Marion County, the origin of the county’s nickname as “Horse Capital of the World” becomes immediately clear.
The region is home to Marion’s roughly 200-acre Farmland Preservation Area, where the county must preserve and protect the area’s “rural and equestrian/agricultural character,” according to its comprehensive plan. The comp plan outlines key elements of “rural character” required for future development: like scenic views, open space protection and rural lighting.
Nancy deCavaignac’s private, 10-acre horse farm sits just within the Farmland Preservation Area, near its eastern boundary. Her daughter started riding horses at the age of five, and about 25 years ago, they started trekking down to Marion County regularly from the Boston area for horse shows.
“I fell in love with it,” deCavaignac said. “My experience with Florida, prior to this, was the coast.”
Ultimately, deCavaignac moved to Marion County. The area is still gorgeously rural, she said — but used to look even more so, back when she first started coming down here. “Ninety percent of what I saw was green. The roads that are now four lanes were two lanes.”
More working farms could be kept in private ownership and protected from future development, should voters approve Marion County’s proposed bonds. The county would put some program funds toward setting up conservation easement agreements with landowners.
For those and other initiatives, having some local funds on hand would also help the county leverage opportunities for additional private, state or federal funding that could help bring specific projects to life. “Like the old adage: it takes money to make money,” Parks and Recreation Director Jim Couillard said during a commission workshop in August.
For deCavaignac, Marion County’s bond referendum has been “a long time coming.”
“This county is vast,” deCavaignac said. “And if we can't preserve parts of it, then it's just going to be paved over.”
She’s excited about the potential to add more parks here, in the county’s northwest section, as well as planned upgrades to the area’s existing Norm Westbrook Park. If voters approve the bonds, they’d help fund trail-riding amenities for that park, like wash racks and watering stations.
About 15 miles north, also within the FPA, equine photographer Mary Phelps keeps six ponies on her 20-acre horse farm. She competes in combined driving, an international equestrian sport that involves guiding horses or ponies from a vehicle like a carriage or cart.
“I'm surrounded by horse neighbors … It's a wonderful community, and a very historic community,” Phelps said. “There's properties all around that have been passed down, generation to generation to generation.”
Several years ago, Phelps was one of many who spoke out against a proposal to develop an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) park within the FPA, which ultimately failed. Phelps credits the nonprofit watchdog group Horse Farms Forever for tracking such development proposals, and for educating herself and other community members about how to weigh in on them by participating in local government.
Phelps supports Marion’s bond referendum. She wants the FPA’s expansive, largely unaltered tracts of land to stay that way, and said paying up to 0.35 mills more in property taxes would be a “negligible” cost toward that end.
But Phelps said she also supports Amendment 3, the proposed constitutional amendment to dramatically reduce property taxes statewide.
It’s not so much about her personal finances: because her husband is a 100% disabled veteran, they “barely” pay property taxes, Phelps said. But she’s concerned about affordability challenges facing Florida’s large population of retirees, many of whom live on fixed incomes.
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“I think for the state of Florida, since we have such a huge influx of tourism, that we should tax that more,” Phelps said.
Property tax burden concerns
Marion County Republican State Committeeman Randy Osborne said he thinks it's important to protect the environment. But Marion should “not go after the homeowners” to foot the bill for that, he said.
Osborne doesn’t support the county’s bond referendum. He said he thinks other funding options, like a sales tax, would be more fair.
“There's a lot of people that use those parks that aren't homeowners,” Osborne said. “And anytime you put a tax burden specifically on one group of people for the collective group to enjoy, that's a concern.”
The state party’s voter guide doesn’t take a position on the referendum, instead advising Marion voters to make their own choice. But Patricia “PG” Schafer, the Republican state committeewoman for Marion County, said “the vast majority” of voters she’s heard from are skeptical of the ballot measure.
“They know what a bond is, and that they know that that's a debt that the county has taken out,” Schafer said. “And they believe they're being asked to service that debt with their tax dollars … And so they're saying, no, they don't want to do that.”
Schafer said she’s spoken with a few people who do support the ballot measure — as well as Amendment 3. She called that position “oxymoronic,” saying: “In my opinion, it does not make logical sense to say yes on both.”
Parsing out potential property tax changes
If approved, Amendment 3 would raise Florida’s homestead tax exemption to $150,000 at the start of next year, and then, in 2028, to $250,000. (Right now, the homestead exemption is $50,000.) For non-homestead property — like commercial and rental properties, or second homes — Amendment 3 would also reduce the state’s annual limit on assessment growth, from 10% down to 5%.
RELATED: Florida’s property tax reduction plan heads to voters. Here’s what’s in it
Without Amendment 3, property taxes would yield about $317 million for Marion County over the next two fiscal years, according to the county. With Amendment 3, Marion would instead face a deficit of nearly $88 million in the same time period.
Proposed bonds aside, Amendment 3 would slash Marion’s general parks and recreation department budget by nearly 50%, according to department director Jim Couillard. A reduction of that size would require eliminating more than 25 positions — and either closing or outsourcing 22 of the county’s 55 parks.
“For facilities that remain open and under our care, the public should expect a reduced level of maintenance, reduced recreation programs, reduced park hours and fewer tournaments being hosted in our sports complexes,” Couillard wrote by email.
Should voters approve both measures — Amendment 3 and Marion’s bond referendum — less property tax revenue would be coming in overall, including for the county’s proposed bonds. That would “significantly” reduce the county’s ability to issue bonds at the full value of $140 million, Couillard said: slowing down the program’s rollout, and limiting how effective it could be.
The nonprofit smart growth advocacy group 1000 Friends of Florida opposes Amendment 3. But even if it should pass, Policy and Planning Director Kim Dinkins said, she still likes the idea of having a local, “dedicated pot” of conservation funding for Marion County.
“(For) the property taxes that we do raise in Marion County, we want to ensure that a certain portion of those are used to fund land conservation and water resource projects,” Dinkins said. “So regardless of what happens with A3 or anything like that, we have committed to the things that are important for us, with this very targeted fund.”
In Florida, voters must approve constitutional amendments by a supermajority threshold of at least 60%. Marion County’s ballot item only needs 50% to pass.
Then, now — and what’s ahead
Long before Marion’s pending ballot measure, in 1988, county voters approved an earlier, $20 million bond referendum — and 0.5-mill property tax — to fund parks.
That program, “Pennies for Parks,” is how many of the county’s existing parks came to be, said Guy Marwick, who helped develop and promote that earlier proposal. “It was pennies on people's taxes, but those parks are still here.”
In Marion County and beyond, Marwick is known as a champion for the area’s freshwater springs. He helped facilitate the designation of Silver Springs State Park in 2013, an effort he said was made possible by leveraging $1 million from the county’s earlier bond referendum.
“It was showing the sincere interest of a local community to want to preserve these things,” Marwick said. “And the state really followed through with the tens of millions that they needed.”
Marwick has been coming to Silver Springs since 1970, he said. Back then, Florida’s total population was about 7 million, according to the state’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research. Today, more than 23 million people live in Florida, reflecting a growth of more than 200%.
More people means more demand on the state’s water supply. Most of that supply comes from groundwater, the source of water flowing through Silver Springs and Florida's 1,000+ other freshwater springs. The groundwater comes from the state’s massive, underground aquifer system, which is made up of limestone and other porous rocks.
“Life in Florida depends on the aquifer,” Marwick said. “We all drink from the aquifer, one way or another, whether it's municipal wells or your own private well.”
In Central Florida, where much of the state’s growth is concentrated, regional water supply planners estimate that, between 2020 and 2050, total water demand will rise 7%. That analysis is for the Central Springs/East Coast (CSEC) Regional Water Supply Plan area, which includes Brevard (except for Cocoa), Indian River, northern Lake, Marion, Okeechobee and Volusia counties.
Among all those areas, by 2050, Marion County is where planners anticipate seeing the largest spike in total water demand: 31%, based on population growth projections. That estimate is collective, covering the projected demand for all types of water, including public supply and domestic self-supply (private wells).
Marwick used to scuba dive in Florida’s springs and rivers, letting him see water conditions up close. Since the 1970s, he said, Silver Springs has changed a great deal. There’s a lot more algae in the springs today, and a lot fewer turtles and fish.
There also used to be more white sand, which contributed to more of the “beautiful blue” color usually associated with freshwater springs, Marwick said. Today, though: “You see little spots of white sand here and there, but it's really changed. The bottom's changed dramatically.”
Like many springs and spring groups in Florida, Silver Springs is polluted, according to the state department of environmental protection. The pollution is from high concentrations of nutrients, from sources like septic tanks and urban turf fertilizer, and gets exacerbated if less water is flowing through the springs.
With groundwater demand only projected to grow in the coming years, protecting the region’s water supply has never been more important, Marwick said.
And protecting water means protecting land — especially in high aquifer recharge areas, like Marion’s Farmland Preservation Area. There, sandy soils help rainwater travel quickly and easily down into the aquifer.
“It’s all connected,” Marwick said. He hopes Marion County voters will decide protecting water and lands is worth paying the price.
