The average Cape Coral single family taxable value falls 13.64 percent in the city's proposed 2027 budget, the only decline in the twelve years its own table covers

Money & World

The Editorial Team · August 3, 2026

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What it changes

Two numbers in this budget point in opposite directions, and a Cape Coral homeowner needs both. The rate number is small and it scales cleanly. The combined city rate, operating plus debt service, moves from 5.3079 mills to 5.3542, which is 0.0463 mills, and a mill is one dollar per thousand dollars of taxable value, so the rate change on its own adds 4 dollars and 63 cents for every 100,000 dollars of taxable value. On a homestead at 200,000 dollars of taxable value that is 9 dollars and 26 cents a year. On a house at 700,000 dollars it is 32 dollars and 41 cents. The value number is far larger and it cuts the other way. Running the city rate against the city's own average single family taxable value in each year, 271,405 dollars now and 234,395 dollars proposed, the average city portion of the bill goes from 1,440 dollars and 59 cents to 1,255 dollars, a fall of 185 dollars and 59 cents, because the value change swamps the rate change many times over. That is an average across every single family home in the city and it is emphatically not a forecast for any particular house. The figure to multiply is the taxable value printed on your own TRIM notice when it arrives this month, which is the value after homestead and any other exemption rather than what a house down the street sold for. Three further points are worth holding. The city rate is one line on a Lee County tax bill that also carries the county rate, the school rate and any dependent district, so this is a change to one component and not to the total. The fire service assessment, which is a flat charge rather than a rate applied to value, is budgeted at 63,885,992 dollars against 63,966,604 dollars this year, so on the city's own numbers that piece of the bill is roughly steady rather than rising. And nothing here is settled. The proposed rate is a ceiling the council can come down from at the September hearings and cannot go up from without mailing every property owner a fresh notice at the city's expense, so August is when the number is worth watching and September is when it is decided.

The City of Cape Coral has published the budget book behind the property tax rate its council advertised last month, and one line in it is worth more attention than the rate.

The city's table of average taxable assessed value for single family homes, homestead and non-homestead together, gives 271,405 dollars for the current year and 234,395 dollars for the year that begins October 1. That is a fall of 37,010 dollars, or 13.64 percent.

Every other year in the table rises, including gains of 3.19 percent this year and 9.14 percent the year before.

The document records the decline and offers no explanation for it. None is supplied here.

The roll grew and the houses on it did not

The same pages carry the arithmetic that makes the decline legible.

Citywide taxable value rises 3.31 percent in the proposal, from 32,039,206,517 dollars to 33,099,276,068. That is a gain of 1,060,069,551 dollars. New construction alone accounts for 1,804,071,238 dollars of the roll.

Subtract the one from the other and property already standing in Cape Coral lost about 744 million dollars of taxable value over the year. The base is larger only because the city built.

That is the condition, stated in the city's own figures, that produces a rolled-back rate above the rate now in force. This desk reported on July 24 that the council voted 7 to 1 on July 22 to advertise a maximum operating rate of 5.1988 mills against the 5.1471 it levies now, and that Resolution 194-26 identifies 5.1988 as the rolled-back rate, the revenue neutral benchmark under Florida law. Evan Williams reported the vote for Gulfshore Business. The budget book, produced the following day, carries the same 5.1988.

What else the book says

Set against the twelve years of rate history the city prints, 5.1988 is the only increase in the operating rate anywhere in the table. It runs from 6.9570 mills in fiscal 2016 down through 6.7500, 6.4903, 6.3750, 6.2500, 5.3694, 5.2188 and 5.1471. Across the eleven year on year steps in that table, three are flat, seven are falls, and one is the rise now proposed.

The debt service levy moves the other way, from 0.1608 mills to 0.1554, which puts the combined city rate at 5.3542 against 5.3079 now.

Spending across all funds is proposed at 1,451,472,867 dollars against 1,434,847,653 adopted for the current year, with the General Fund at 285,012,674 dollars against 262,501,397. The fire service assessment, a flat charge rather than a rate on value, is budgeted at 63,885,992 dollars against 63,966,604 this year, both at 81 percent cost recovery.

One detail that looks arbitrary is not. The city budgets its property tax revenue at 96 percent of the estimated levy, and section 200.065(2)(a)1 of the Florida Statutes requires a taxing authority to use not less than 95 percent of certified taxable value when it computes rates. Applying 5.1988 mills to 33,099,276,068 dollars gives 172,076,516 dollars, and 96 percent of that is the 165,193,456 the document publishes.

The current year's rates were checked here against the ordinance that set them. Ordinance 49-25 levies 5.1471 mills for general municipal purposes and 0.1608 mills for debt service on the city's Series 2019, Series 2021 and Series 2024 general obligation bonds. The book and the ordinance agree.

The dates

Council budget workshops fall on August 4, August 11 and August 18. The Lee County Property Appraiser mails TRIM notices during the month. The council fixes the final millage and the hearing dates on September 10, the required newspaper advertisement runs between September 20 and September 22, and the hearing that adopts the rate and the budget is September 24.

Under section 200.065(2)(e) the rate finally adopted may not exceed the rate tentatively adopted, and a tentative rate above the proposed rate given to the property appraiser obliges the city to pay for a first class letter to every taxpayer setting out the tax under both.

Between now and late September the number can fall. It cannot quietly rise.

The average Cape Coral single family taxable value falls 13.64 percent in the city's proposed 2027 budget, the only decline in the twelve years its own table covers

The roll grew and the houses on it did not

What else the book says

The dates

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