00:00The mayor's office says the Doge subpoenas are a political thing. What's your message?
00:04It's not political at all. I mean, the reality is, and we were here with Blaise Angolia,
00:09the chief financial officer, who's doing a fantastic job. I mean, he is a bulldog when
00:15it comes to standing up for taxpayers. And isn't that what you want in a chief financial officer?
00:21We want to highlight the growth of these local government budgets. We have people that will come
00:33to us and say they're getting pinched by property taxes because their homes are being valued for
00:39more than what it was. And by the way, what goes up goes down. I mean, what was your home valued at
00:44in 2006 compared to 2010? You remember that period, probably worth more in 2006 than it was
00:51in 2010 in almost every instance, I would imagine, given what happened with the market.
00:56So these things go up and down. So folks come and then, you know, I have to usually remind folks,
01:03your property taxes are local. They're under Florida's constitution. The millage, all that is
01:08set by these local taxing authorities. The money goes to them and then they use it. We don't rely on
01:15property tax revenue at the state level. You know, we have sales tax. We have some other things. We just
01:20got rid of the business rent tax, eliminated that tax, and we've eliminated other taxes.
01:24And we're happy to do it. And we're one of the lowest taxes state in the country. Certainly on a
01:30per capita basis, we're probably the lowest. So you have that. So we are in a position where we want
01:36to be able to help with property tax. But it's not something I can just ask the legislature, hey,
01:42cut the millage, do this, do that, because they don't have constitutional authority to do the local
01:48taxes. That is your counties and your cities. So what we're going to do is we're going to place a
01:53question on the ballot that is going to allow Floridians to be able to vote themselves relief from
02:01property tax. And as I said, my vision is, you know, if you own your home to truly own it, you have to own
02:07it free and clear of the government. You shouldn't have to pay rent to the government.
02:11And, you know, there'll be rank, like, you know, people that are, you know, buying investment
02:17properties, like, fine, like, that's different commercial, there's, there's, there's differences, but
02:20your personal home, you know, we really believe, should be, should not be subject to tax. It's an
02:27unrealized gain. And I'm just one that's like, you know, you, if you tax me at point of sale, like, I buy a car and
02:33I pay a sales tax on it. But like, for me to then just, you know, pay a tax on the value every, every now,
02:40cars, usually, when you drive them off the lot go down. Now, during COVID, the cars actually went up in
02:44value, you, you'd buy a car, there was such a shortage, that you could drive it off the lot. And then you
02:50could even flip it for five $10,000 profit, because there was such a rush to buy to buy
02:55vehicles. But but that's our vision. So, and of course, so what do people say? Oh, that can't be done. You
03:02can't do that. And my question is, is why can't it be done? Look, we were the first place we went to with
03:08these audits was Broward County, Florida, they got 1.9 million people, they've had no net population
03:15growth over the last five years, their budgets increased 60%. So the question is, is okay, why is
03:22it increased 60%? That's the whole reason that we're doing the Doge. And we're also doing it on
03:28state agencies and our state universities. And we're looking at a whole host of things, not just spending,
03:33we're also looking at some policies of universities. And we're looking at how certain things are done
03:38in practice. Because you know, you have the law on the books, which in Florida, we were the first state
03:43to eliminate DEI from our public universities. And we did that years ago. But are you repackaging that
03:52under another name? Is that being smuggled into lower levels of universities? So we're looking at all that
03:57stuff. And we're looking at ways state agencies can do better. Although I do point out, if you look,
04:03the budget that we're under right now in Florida, is spending less than last year's budget. And last
04:09year's budget spent less than the year before, I don't know, think there's many places that are
04:13actually reducing spending, while still doing major things like teacher salary increases, moving Florida
04:18forward. I mean, our I4 stuff we're doing is already made a big impact. We do a lot more there billions
04:24that we're proud of doing that. But we're doing it on a budget. But yet even so I could kit, I could
04:28say, you know, since I've been governor, we've, we've retired almost half of the state's taxpayer
04:35supported debt for all its history. We're the second lowest per capita spending in the country. New York
04:42has 3 million, 4 million fewer residents, their budgets twice as much as ours. You know, we don't
04:47need to be no, you can always do better. So that's our view on that. But on the local governments,
04:51people are getting pinched by property taxes, and you're getting pinched to fund budgets that have
04:57greatly expanded. So the question is, is, is there room to be able to give you the property tax relief
05:06you want, while pulling back some of the bloat that's happened over these last four or five years.
05:12And so the Doge efforts are really one, standing up for taxpayers, but two, letting people have the
05:18information about where their money's going, when they when they having to pay property tax every
05:23year, what is that going towards? And do you want to change that relationship you have with these
05:30local governments, so that they can't keep picking your pocket, you know, just for living in your own
05:35home. So so that's what's good. That's the it's not political or partisan. It's something that I think
05:40has a lot of interest across party lines, because it isn't like if you're one party or the other,
05:47that you're happy that your property taxes have gone up. I don't think anybody's happy with that,
05:53especially when they haven't realized the game. Like it's one thing if you sell your house,
05:59you get a new one, and you have a different tax basis, maybe it's it's taxed more people are just
06:04living in their home. And they're having to pay more taxes, even when the millage rate is an
06:09increase because the assessments, oh, your properties were 200,000, 300,000 more 400,000 more. And it's
06:16like, man, and here's the thing. You will get assessed higher. You know, I don't know how aggressive
06:24they are assessing you lower when the market goes down. That's, you know, I don't know, like, maybe
06:28some do. I know we've got some, some property appraisers who are probably pretty stand up around the
06:33state. But the reality is, it's usually a one way ratchet. So so that's what we're leaning. That's
06:38what we're moving towards. Blaze is really doing a great job. And the fact of the matter is Orange
06:43County was not cooperative. He has the authority. And then the state also has additional authority with
06:50the most recent budget. So when you have people reading off a prepared script, and not willing to
06:56answer questions as a taxpayer, is that acceptable to you? No, of course not. So this is something
07:03that I think is important. I think compliance is obviously required under the law. And I expect
07:09to see that. But I think I think Blaze has been good. You know, he's been very hard on Manatee
07:15County, which is a very red county. I mean, I'd have to look at the election results. I mean,
07:19you know, when I was running, I think we wanted by like 30 points. It is not a liberal county by any
07:25stretch. He's also looked at like places in the panhandle and elsewhere. So it isn't just
07:30the blue dots like Orlando, and Orange County and Broward. Those are included Gainesville's included
07:37too. I mean, they've got a lot of they've got a lot of issues. But but it really is across the
07:42board for all taxpayers. So I'm proud of what Blaze and goalie is doing. I think we need somebody in
07:48that position that's going to be very aggressive at being an advocate for the taxpayers. And I think
07:53you're going to see that there's a lot of this because you think about it, you know, if you're elected to
07:59one of these boards, commissioners, you're there. And then especially during COVID, it's like, okay,
08:06the whole world comes to Florida, right? People move to Florida, some people just vacationed in
08:12Florida, some people just wanted to get away from the insanity elsewhere. So what happens is your
08:17coffers swell. So they're getting property values are going up, people are buying homes, a lot of times
08:22sight unseen, you go back to like 2021 22, people were buying homes without even seeing them, they'd be on
08:29the market. And like an hour later, it'd be sold. That was happening frequently in Florida. And so
08:34you had this rush. And then they're buying homes, and the values are going up, and the prices are going
08:39up. And and that means more money is flowing into these coffers. And so how many of the local
08:45governments responded by doing really significant property tax reductions, not very many did that.
08:52They basically spent the money. And there's also other things about, you know, do they put money
08:59away? What do they have here? All this other stuff. So people deserve the truth on this. And I think that
09:05the the audits that that blaze are leading, you know, it's, we've called it the Florida Agency for
09:12Fiscal Oversight, our FAFO audits. And, you know, I think it's something that's really, really good for
09:18the people of, of the state of Florida, but you got to stand with taxpayers. I mean, we're the free state
09:23of Florida. Because we respect taxpayers, we do that at the state level more than more than anywhere. But
09:30we need to do it at the local level as well. All right, thanks, everybody.
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