Amendments 2 and 5 passed. What’s the impact?

Of the six state amendments on this year’s ballot in Florida, only two made it out alive. Amendments 2 and 5 crossed the required 60% threshold.

Amendment 2 says in part, “to preserve forever fishing and hunting, including by the use of traditional methods, as a public right and preferred means of responsibly managing and controlling fish and wildlife.”

Amendment 5 says in part, “to require an annual adjustment for inflation to the value of current or future homestead exemptions that apply solely to levies other than school district levies.”

About 67% of voters supported amendment 2 and 66% of voters supported amendment 5.

Both amendments deal with two very different topics but one thing they share in common is they will both impact the state of Florida.

Experts say they will likely be impacts but it’s too early to tell what concrete impacts we may see. Both amendments need to be established in the law first, in order to understand the impacts. Of course, many have predictions.

Starting with amendment 2, which deals with hunting and fishing.

• RELATED: Amendment 2: Right to fish and hunt

“I think broadly, lots of Floridians just thought, well, yeah, either I like to hunt or I like to fish, or if I don’t do it personally, I know other people that do, seems pretty innocuous to me and like a good idea. So, a lot of people voted for it. It sort of sounded good, and there wasn’t a lot of money to point out the negative,” Aubrey Jewett, a Political Science Professor at the University of Central Florida said.

With the passing of the amendment, hunting and fishing will be in our constitution, instead of just our state statute. Some worry about the impact.

“I just think it’s going to cause a lot of confusion and hinder management. If this is put also in the Constitution, you have FWC [Fish & Wildlife Conservation] which has constitutional authority to manage fish and wildlife, and now you have hunters and fishers with constitutional authority to hunt and fish, and it says those are the preferred means. I just see a lot of confusion and obscurity ahead, and so that gives us concern,” Elizabeth Fleming, the Senior Florida Representative of Defenders of Wildlife said.

Fleming highlighted two specific provisions that concern her: hunting and fishing as “preferred” means for managing wildlife and the vague definition of “traditional methods.”

Fleming also said there is a possibility of lawsuits if FWC regulations conflict with the amendment’s provisions.

At such early stages, many environmental and wildlife groups don’t exactly know the negative consequences of the amendment but say they are taking a “wait and see approach” to determine the impact.

As for Amendment 5, homeowners will most likely be paying less in property taxes. Jewett says he wasn’t surprised to see that Amendment 5 passed.

• RELATED: Amendment 5: Homestead exemption inflation adjustment

“It was one that I thought probably would pass if people understood it, and that’s because it’s going to give homeowners a small break on their taxes over time. This is going to take millions of dollars out of local government. So, we’re going to have potentially less money to pay police and fire, to upkeep on parks and libraries, to build more roads and this sort of thing.

Jewett went on to say local governments will have to find the money somehow.

“If the counties and cities feel like, ‘well, we can’t afford to lose several million dollars,’ they might increase the rates a little bit, so even if you get a slightly bigger homestead exemption, you still might end up paying the same amount of taxes because they raised the rates,” Jewett said.

Paul Polk, the Charlotte County Property Appraiser says it’s too early to tell the impacts. He emphasized that the impact on county budgets and potential program cuts is uncertain and will depend on future CPI changes and property value trends.

“I think as long as the property base continues to increase, like we’ve seen, maybe not the rate we’ve seen over the past couple years, I think it should be a huge impact to the taxing region of the county and the cities, but we’ll see. We’ll have to see over time what that does,” Polk said.

Brian Gleason, the Communications Director of Charlotte County provided WINK News with the following: “Currently the loss to the Charlotte County general millage (6.0519 mills) is about $100,000 for every percentage point of inflation.  So, that would have been about $340,000 for last year (CPI increase of 3.4%). Given the growth we are experiencing we don’t anticipate a significant impact,” Gleason wrote in a statement.

Deborah Curry with Collier County said with the passing of amendment 5, the impact to the County’s General Fund is projected at $194,200.

The plan for the change to homestead exemption is as follows, “Starting with the current fiscal year, the County has transitioned to a priority-based budgeting system to find program efficiencies, trim costs, and find new and innovative revenue streams to support operations.  This modest reduction in revenues will be factored into that priority-based planning approach,” Curry said.

Matt Caldwell, the Lee County Property Appraiser said there is no fiscal impact to the County unless they choose to change their tax rate.

“The tax roll will reflect the total taxable value in 2025 and the 2025 tax rate will be auto-calculated to provide the same level of funding as 2024. So there is no “missing” money; that’s a mischaracterization of how the homestead exemption works,” Caldwell said.

As we wait to see what impacts the amendments will bring, experts are weighing in. Potential impacts of Amendment 5 could be sales tax increases or the cutting of programs. The potential impact of Amendment 2 is regulation versus what is now a constitutional right.

WINK News will continue to monitor the amendment impacts.