Amendment 3 fallout: St. Johns County puts fire station on hold, plans staff cuts

St. Johns County is preparing for significant budget adjustments after Florida voters approved Amendment 3, a property tax reform measure that will reduce ad valorem tax revenue for local governments.

According to the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research, the county could see revenue reductions of $68.3 million in fiscal year 2028, $136.1 million in fiscal year 2029, and $191.6 million by fiscal year 2032.

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Clay Murphy, chair of the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners, acknowledged the challenge ahead while noting the county has been planning for this outcome since spring.

“It’s just something that we’re going to have to deal with,” Murphy said. “But losing 15% of your ad valorem tax revenue year one, 30% year two, and then at year five, we’re going to be at about 45% of our ad valorem tax revenue, but just gone.”

Amendment 3 preparations underway

Led by County Administrator Joy Andrews, staff began a countywide review of services, staffing, contracts and capital projects in May — months before the election. The county has since set aside $31.2 million in emergency response reserves and an additional $30 million in General Fund reserves designated for financial resiliency.

A hiring freeze is also in effect and will remain indefinitely.

“We had a hiring freeze that we started implementing immediately. No more hiring,” Murphy said. “And that’s now permanent because we can’t afford to hire anybody new right now until we get a handle on what it’s going to look like.”

$100 million in projects paused

The county has placed approximately $100 million in capital improvement projects on hold in response to Amendment 3 and identified roughly $8.6 million in position and vacant-position funding for reassessment. Among the paused projects is a planned new fire station on Beachwalk area.

Murphy said the county also has to reconsider a $120 million bond the previous board approved for parks, fire stations and libraries, noting that building new facilities only makes sense if the county can afford to maintain them.

Services facing cuts

Non-mandated services such as parks and recreation, libraries and Health and Human Services are among the areas under review.

Murphy offered a hypothetical to illustrate the scale of cuts needed.

“So to give you an idea of what $65 million would look like to our budget, if we eliminated parks and recs and libraries and HHS, that would be about $50 million,” he said. “Hypothetically.”

Next steps

Murphy said no formal decisions have been made and that a public discussion is being scheduled for December at a commission meeting. He said the county’s goal is to make genuine budget reductions rather than offset losses with new fees.

“The people have spoken, and I certainly respect that because people are concerned about their taxes,” Murphy said. “But now comes the job of implementing the cuts that they’ve mandated for us, and it’s going to be painful.”