This story is the final installment of our series Central Florida Seen & Heard: Vote Your Budget in Partnership with the Oviedo Community News. The goal of this series is to help voters make the connection between who they vote for and the impact an elected officials beliefs can have in daily life.
It’s a brutally hot Florida summer day, and Gin wants a drink.
Gin is a chestnut brown Moriesian horse, a 1,000-pound “toddler,” as his mom Becky Greco calls him. He nuzzles her and snorts, guiding her to the hose in an open field at Brigadoon Farm in Seminole County’s Black Hammock.
“This is 150 gallons, so you’re not talking a little bit of water,” Greco says. “And that’s just out here, not all the other waters.”
The spigot is encased in a modified dog kennel because Gin has broken the pipe twice recently. As she talks, more horses gather, seemingly waiting their turn.
“Really? Thank you,” Greco says as she gets splashed while getting the horse a drink. “But yeah, they’ll get hosed off and bathed, because it cools them off, it gets all the sweat off, and then you’ll see them go and roll (in the dirt).”
The hose runs for more than 10 minutes.
“We fill these up at least twice a week, if not three times a week,” Greco said. “It’s definitely part of our concerns, with the water and the cost of everything.”
In June, Brigadoon Farms used 24,700 gallons of water, for both the horses and the attached residential home property. The total bill: about $108 from Seminole County’s water service.
And that bothers Greco, who manages the farm. Because where she lives in incorporated Oviedo, on city water, her bill for the same month was $230 for her 2,260-square-foot home using 12,420 gallons of water per month.
That means her residential home’s water bill cost twice the amount of a horse farm, while using less than half the water. Back in October of 2020, after moving into the home from New Jersey, her bill was $110. That’s a 98% increase over the last six years.
“We’ve been the same amount of people living there, been running the same amount of water,” Greco said. “The cost just keeps going up and up and up.”
Greco wanted to leave New Jersey and fell in love with this area of Oviedo while visiting her college friend Heidi Coghill, who owns Brigadoon Farm. Greco moved here in 2020 and now manages the stables, which have between 10 and 15 horses boarding at a time.
For Coghill, her biggest financial strain isn’t the water bill. It’s the property taxes.
“What’s hurting me the most? Land taxes. Definitely.” Coghill said.
In the last five years, Coghill’s property tax bill went from $5,346 in 2021 to $7,503 in 2025 – a 40% increase. But her actual total property tax rate has gone down slightly. While Seminole County has increased its property tax rate, other governments have dropped it, so the overall tax rate she pays is less.
The increase in her bill is because her home’s assessed value went from $387,563 to $589,383. Coghill didn’t know about the homestead exemption, and didn’t file for one until 2023.
To both Greco and Coghill, the disparate water bills and the increase in property taxes paid are a symptom of a bigger problem: local governments collecting more money, while residents don’t know or fully understand where the money is being spent.
And so both are leaning toward voting for a proposed constitutional amendment that would increase the property tax exemption from the current amount of $50,000 to $250,000 over two years.
“My husband lost his job last year, we’re making less this year, so it makes it harder,” Greco said. “And so if we could save some more money that way, that would be a huge help. Homeowners insurance is insane. Everything is so expensive, and everything keeps going up and up and up. So yeah, I mean, taxes, I just, I think there’s a lot there that they could reevaluate without using all the scare tactics.”
The $12 billion question, or how to save $164 a month
So what exactly would Amendment 3 do?
Officially titled the Save Our Homes From Excessive Property Taxes amendment, the bill has two main impacts. First, it would increase the property tax exemption for homesteaded properties from the current $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and then $250,000 in 2028; afterwards, the exemption would increase with inflation. Those exemptions would not apply to taxes for schools.
The amendment only applies to a person’s homesteaded property; it does not apply to commercial property or, crucially, to rental properties. The bill would cap the annual increase in assessed property value from going up by more than 5% annually; currently, increases in value are capped at 10%.
Overall, Amendment 3 budget impacts (revenue lost) per county greater Central Florida total $2.1 billion at full implementation
| County | Expected Budget Deficit from Amendment 3 |
| Seminole | $233.1 million |
| Orange | $811.7 million |
| Lake | $241.6 million |
| Osceola | $253.3 million |
| Brevard | $267.7 million |
| Volusia | $351.9 million |
| Central Florida (including counties and cities) | $2.17 billion |
David Johnson, the Seminole County Property Appraiser, said Amendment 3 would “eviscerate” the way governments are funded.
“So you’re either going to have to cut services, expenses — which, let’s just be honest about it, that’s personnel — or you’re going to have to come up with a different funding mechanism to keep the same level of service, and the different funding mechanism would be the non-ad valorem,” Johnson said. “I’m not clairvoyant enough to know what that looks like. I just know that you can’t cut your way out of that big of a number.”
The bill would also give the Florida Legislature the authority to eliminate property taxes completely in the future, without getting voter approval first.
It also limits what property taxes can be spent on to:
- Public safety, including law enforcement, fire service, and emergency medical service.
- Education and public schools.
- Infrastructure (including road, bridges and stormwater).
- Natural resource projects (including flood control measures)
- Retirement obligations and existing debt; all new borrowing would have to follow these new restrictions.
- Expenditures approved by such county officers or county or municipal governing bodies, except those expenditures prohibited by general law.
In Seminole County, there are more than 108,000 homesteaded properties. And of those, about 3,500 are homes where the owners currently pay zero property taxes. These are for combat veterans who are permanently disabled or are wheelchair bound. If governments increase fees for other services or begin charging new fees, that could end up increasing the overall taxes some people pay.
“That’s the big unknown with this situation,” Johnson said. “Theoretically, lower-valued properties may end up paying more because those non-ad valorem assessments are not subject to the homestead exemption.”
According to an analysis by the Florida Policy Institute, the amendment is expected to cut $5.5 million cut from Winter Springs and $9.2 million from Oviedo.
Statewide, it’s a $12 billion cut to governments.
So how would Amendment 3 impact Greco and Coghill?
So would those billion dollar numbers play out at a horse boarding facility in Seminole County?
For Coghill in unincorporated Seminole County, Amendment 3 would have her overall tax bill drop from $7,715 in 2026 to $6,041 in 2028, when fully implemented – a 22% drop. That $1,674 savings equates to about $140 per month. The first-year savings would be $831, or about $70 per month.
For Greco in the city of Oviedo, Amendment 3 would save her more. Her overall tax bill would drop from $7,051 to $5,074 – a 28% drop at full implementation. That $1,977 savings equates to $165 per month. The first-year savings would be $678, or $56 per month.
Greco said she thinks there are too many scare tactics.
“I don’t like seeing my taxes keep going up, and so for that reason alone I’m pretty confident that I would vote for it,” Greco said. “I feel like there’s so many scare tactics out there. Well, we won’t have a police department, we won’t have fire, but I don’t think that’s really the case. But I wish that there was more easily available information for everyday people to get that.”
Greco said she moved out of New Jersey, in part, because of the higher taxes.
“That’s six years. What’s it going to be in 12 years? What’s it going to be in 20 years?” Greco asked. “That’s part of why we left New Jersey, because in New Jersey we were paying $7,000 for a tiny little townhouse with no property for our taxes alone. … I moved down here to get away from that, so I don’t want to see it keep building.”
For Coghill in unincorporated Seminole County, she said she wants to see smaller government. She said that in the 10 years since she’s lived in the house, her road hasn’t been surfaced. She said she mows the easement between her house and the road and that most years, her family is the one cleaning out the stormwater gullies before hurricane season.
“If I see more of that stuff, okay, maybe – maybe,” Coghill said. “But no, like, I look at my taxes being spent somewhere else, and that’s in Oviedo (incorporated). It’s not here. It’s not here.”
Greco said she wants to see a smaller government that funds the necessities. She said she would be fine if Oviedo expanded, and all the unincorporated areas became the city. And on the flipside, she would be fine if Oviedo’s local government disappeared as well, and Oviedo was just an address.
“I’d be fine with that,” Greco said.
“But make smart choices in that smaller government,” Coghill added.
Becky savings:
2027 Savings* $ 677.88
2028 Savings* (from 2026) $ 1,977.22
Heidi savings:
2027 Savings $ 831.11
2028 Savings (from 2026) $ 1,674.11
Connecting the dots with your ballot
Alan Ott is an incumbent Oviedo City Councilmember, and he’s up for reelection in November. Ott is currently running unopposed.
When asked about Greco’s water bill and why it’s higher, he said the comparison to county water is an “apples and oranges” situation. Greco’s water bill also includes stormwater and wastewater; Coghill is on septic for sewage so doesn’t pay for stormwater and wastewater in her water bill.
More broadly, water is what’s known as an enterprise fund. That means the city must periodically do rate studies and charge what it costs to provide the service, including the amount of debt it takes to build the water system.
And in Oviedo, the city has had to issue more debt to build two new wells that go deeper into the aquifer, pulling out water that will cost more to treat and turn into drinking water.
“This water requires advanced treatment to remove contaminants before reaching the taps in your home,” city officials said in a video explaining the changes. “Tapping into the lower aquifer will sustain
Oviedo’s water supply as we move into the future.”
“There’s very much an apples and oranges kind of situation there. But I definitely can understand,” Ott said about the water bills. “We charge what it costs. Now, her argument might be ‘well, you guys are really inefficient and it shouldn’t cost that much.’ Could be. That’s a possibility.”
Because the municipal race in November is nonpartisan, Ott didn’t want to get into his political leanings. He said his biggest issue is with Tallahassee lawmakers taking away local decisions.
Philosophically, he doesn’t think property taxes are the best way to fund local governments. When he first heard about the idea, his first thought was, “Great! What do you want to do instead?”
“I do like lower taxes,” Ott said. “I was the first one to say out loud last year ‘let’s lower the millage’ (property tax rate). But that doesn’t mean I align with the way Tallahassee wants to, in air quotes, ‘lower taxes.’”
In Oviedo, about half of the properties have a homestead exemption. Out of the $44.8 million budget from property taxes, 55% is already spent on police and fire services.
Ott said Oviedo would likely look to increase fees for using park services, for example; residents and visitors pay anywhere from $60 to $205 currently to rent various pavillions. Another option that could be used to offset the $9.2 million the city is expected to lose every year if Amendment 3 passes: a fire fee. The city already did a rate study for a fee to pay for fire service in 2022, but ultimately rejected the proposal after residents spoke out against the fee.
If that had passed, the fire fee at full implementation would have been $353.69 per 2,125 square feet of building area. Vacant land owners would pay 15% of the base cost rate per 11,300 square feet of land.
Additionally, when Oviedo looked at this during a budget worksession in June, city officials discussed a multi-pronged approach: Freezing or eliminating open positions, laying off staff, cutting services, paying off debt early.
On the other side of the ledger, the city is considering myriad fee increases if the amendment passes:
- Increasing the property tax rate, or millage, to $839.44 per $100,000 of a home’s assessed value; the current rate is $566.92 per $100,000.
- Establish a fire fee, which could be as much as $353.69 per 2,125 square feet of building area.
- Increasing other fees charged so that they cover 100% of the cost to administer them.
- Increasing ambulance fees to cover 100% of the cost of transporting patients.
Ott said he does think Tallahassee lawmakers are intentionally trying to reduce the number of city governments in the state.
“Would the state rather deal with 67 counties? Or 411 cities and 67 counties?” Ott asked. “When you look at it that way, is the state going to try to push all the small cities away, right, and just make it not feasible for us to stay in business?”
Still, Ott stopped short of saying it was an “existential” crisis for Oviedo. He said the city will figure out a way to make it work – but people might not be happy with the outcome.
“It’s easy for the state to set up a situation where they caused this problem and then at the end of the day everybody is going to be mad at us, right?” Ott said. “They’re going to show up at our city hall with pitchforks, not the capitol. We’re going to survive. But it’s going to be suboptimal.”
But what about the Seminole County Commission, and Coghill’s concerns at the horse boarding facility, that her tax dollars were being spent in Oviedo?
Seminole County officials said property tax money doesn’t go to fund city services. There could be joint projects where the county and the city both combine penny sales tax for projects. Seminole County is spending $3.8 million on road and stormwater projects on DeLeon Street in the Black Hammock. Seminole County also did 241 inspections at residents’ homes for mosquito control calls, and sprayed for mosquitoes five times in the last year.
Charline Santos is a Democrat running for the County Commission, challenging incumbent Republican Amy Lockhart in November. When asked about Coghill’s concerns, Santos said the county should pause on projects like the planned Five Points Complex, a $500 million government facility to consolidate many county operations to one new site. She also pointed to the $100 million indoor sports complex.
“I asked them to pause because they’re utilizing the fourth generation penny sales tax to pay for the purchase of this land,” Santos said. “That infrastructure sales tax could be used to help keep libraries open, to help pave roads, and to sustain the quality of life that we’re all looking for.”
But incumbent Lockhart pushed back on that: Penny sales tax projects can only be used for capital projects; they can’t go to fund operations.
“We can’t take those dollars and fill the hole that will be created by the property tax amendment,” Lockhart said. “It’s a great political soundbite. It’s not public policy.”
Lockhart didn’t want to directly comment on the concerns of a constituent. She said there is an affordability problem, but property taxes aren’t the biggest issue: insurance costs are. And there is inequity in the property tax system, where depending on when you bought your home, your taxes can be wildly different.
At a budget workshop earlier this year, Lockhart said other government agencies, like LYNX, should also have to cut budgets, even if they don’t charge property taxes.
Seminole county has also released a public website to look at Amendment 3’s projected impacts.
“We’re already being accused, before we even open our mouths, of being alarmists,” Lockhart said. “And that when we have these conversations, all we’re doing is trying to fearmonger and scare people. And this is nothing to do with scaring anyone. It’s facts and it’s math.”
One resident was against Amendment 3. Then for it. Then against it again.
Chase Milligan is conflicted on Amendment 3.
Milligan lives in unincorporated Casselberry in Seminole County. The amendment would drop his bill from $4,961 today to $3,623 at full implementation, a 27% drop. It works out to $111 per month.
“If I was penny pinching, I probably would vote yes because I need the $1,300, but we’re not penny pinching in our household at the moment,” Milligan said. “$100 bucks – that’s one dinner these days a month, roughly, with a family of four.”
A month ago, Milligan was leaning toward voting against Amendment 3. A week ago, he was leaning toward voting yes.
But during an interview with Oviedo Community News, Milligan switched again. He is again leaning toward voting against Amendment 3.
“After kind of talking through this again, it’s kind of crazy and (I’m) flopping (on) this again,” Milligan said.
When Milligan leaves his home, he goes to Oviedo and Winter Springs to go to parks or go out to eat. He’s worried how those cities will absorb those cuts, and has started watching local government meetings to try and figure out the impacts.
There are things he likes about the amendment. Fundamentally, he’s not opposed to increasing the exemption, and likes the idea of tying it to inflation.
But principally, he also doesn’t like the idea that there would be people who would be using government services without paying into them.
“So, at this point, you know, the only way that would maybe change to a full yes would be if the whole kind of write-up changes, which isn’t going to happen before November,” Milligan said.
He said he doesn’t think he’ll be in the same house in ten years. And he also worries that the cut in taxes could ultimately hurt the housing market when he sells his home.
“I could be selfish and keep the $1,300 in my pocket and whatever that savings is for the next ten years, and I could watch the community fall, which in turn hurts my sale value down the road – but do I really care if the community falls because I’m probably not going to be here ten years from now?” Milligan asked. “Or, do I stop and think about not being selfish and consider my investment can help to continue to make the community better in a world … where everyone only looks out for themselves.”
