$94 Million Over Two Years: Escambia County Has Priced What Amendment 3 Would Take, and Is Planning for It
On the eve of the vote, the county's own property appraiser has put the Amendment 3 bill at $38 million in year one and $56.2 million in year two. The administrator's word for the response is strategizing - and sometimes, he says, a reduction of services.
Before Escambia County votes on Amendment 3, its own appraiser has priced the measure. If voters approve the larger homestead exemption on Tuesday, the county government's revenue loss is estimated at just over $38 million in the first year and $56.2 million in the second - more than $94 million across two years - according to estimates from Escambia County Property Appraiser Bubba Peters and his staff, based on the 2025 tax roll, NorthEscambia reported. The amendment raises the non-school homestead exemption to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, and needs 60 percent to pass.
The losses itemize across the governments Pensacola lives under. West Florida Public Libraries would lose $2 million in year one and $3 million in year two. The City of Pensacola faces $7.2 million gone by the second year, the town of Century about $10,800, and the Escambia County Children's Trust would see its property-tax revenue drop by $3.2 million in year two. Schools are the exception written into the measure itself: school taxes are excluded from the increased exemption, so school revenue is not impacted.
County Administrator Wes Moreno told NorthEscambia the planning is already underway. The county has been strategizing and planning different ways to make up for the shortfall, he said - and, in his words, sometimes that is a reduction of services. That is the honest shape of Tuesday's choice in Escambia County: a larger exemption on the tax bill of every homesteaded home, weighed against a two-year, $94 million hole that the county, the city, the libraries and the Children's Trust would have to plan their way around.
