State economists put Marco Island's first-year loss under Amendment 3 at $1,074,700, and the council has called off the police outsourcing study it started over that number

Money & World

The Editorial Team · July 28, 2026

The underside of a tall concrete road viaduct seen from the grass below, its two decks curving away into the distance between massive square piers.

Photo: El Capra / Pexels

What it changes

The property tax debate stopped being abstract on Marco Island the moment somebody put a police department on the table. Amendment 3 needs 60 percent of the vote on November 3, so nothing has happened yet, and the state's own estimate says nothing happens to Marco Island in fiscal 2026-27 either. The first year that carries a number is 2027-28, and that number is $1,074,700. What the episode shows a Southwest Florida resident is the shape of the choice a small city faces when a large exemption arrives without a replacement revenue source. Marco Island runs its own police department, which most municipalities of its size in Collier County do not, and that department is the largest discretionary line a council looking for roughly a million dollars would find. The council has now ruled that option out, unanimously and in public, and the search for the money moves to everything else: capital deferrals, reserves, the millage rate itself, or the services that do not have residents at a microphone. Note also what the same meeting did. It committed $7.1 million to a bridge and a public works building on the night it closed off its largest potential saving, and it is funding part of that by reallocating other capital projects, including planned bicycle lanes on Bald Eagle Drive. Homeowners elsewhere in Collier and Lee should read the state table rather than the campaign material, because the figures are published city by city and the first-year number is much smaller than the sixth-year number in every one of them.

Marco Island stands to lose $1,074,700 in its first year under Amendment 3, the property tax measure Florida voters decide on November 3, according to the estimate the Legislature's own economists published this month.

That figure comes from the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research, which scored the amendment resolution on July 10 and broke the result down by individual local government. The table shows no impact for Marco Island in fiscal 2026-27, because the larger homestead exemption takes effect on January 1, 2027, then $1,074,700 in fiscal 2027-28, $2,133,972 the year after, and $3,396,619 by fiscal 2031-32.

The same page carries the rest of Collier County. The City of Naples is estimated to lose $1,360,555 in the first year and $4,995,669 by 2031-32. The Board of County Commissioners is estimated to lose $47,729,782 rising to $134,209,317, and the county's independent special districts $22,555,910 rising to $60,440,443. Everglades City, the smallest municipality in the county, is estimated at $76,386 rising to $212,558.

Marco Island council members had asked city staff in June to find out what the Collier County Sheriff's Office would charge to provide law enforcement on the island, as one option for absorbing the loss. The request produced weeks of public alarm that the city intended to close its police department.

At the council meeting on July 20 all seven members agreed the city will not pursue replacing the Marco Island Police Department, Coastal Breeze News reported. Councilor Tamara Goehler asked the council to reverse the earlier direction, and Chair Darrin Palumbo asked for a clear consensus, which every member gave by a show of hands. Councilors said any further contact with the sheriff would be about coordination and shared resources rather than a takeover, and that City Manager Casey Lucius and Interim Police Chief Joseph Belardo could keep looking for cooperative savings.

The police item was not on the printed agenda for that meeting. It came up under council communications, at the request of Councilor Bonita Schwan, who had raised the original idea in June.

What was on the agenda was spending. The council authorized a $2,450,749 contract with Rycon Construction for a new public works facility, covered open storage and site work, replacing trailers dating to the 1980s. It adopted Resolution 26-32, committing the city to $3,397,181 toward the demolition and reconstruction of the Caxambas Court Bridge over Roberts Bay under agreements with the Florida Department of Transportation. It adopted Resolution 26-33, committing $1,265,897 to relocate the city water and sewer mains carried on that bridge. The three items total $7,113,827.

Coastal Breeze News reported that the city expects to fund part of the bridge work by reallocating money from other capital projects and budget savings, including deferring planned bicycle lanes on Bald Eagle Drive, rather than relying on a proposed transportation bond.

The council also held an operating budget workshop the same afternoon, with a millage presentation and a preliminary spending cap for fiscal 2027 on the agenda.

Amendment 3 raises the second homestead exemption to $150,000 on January 1, 2027 and $250,000 on January 1, 2028, against every levy except school district levies, and cuts the annual assessment cap on non-homestead property from 10 percent to 5 percent. It requires 60 percent of the vote to pass. This site has published a fuller account of what the amendment does at Florida Property Tax Amendment 3.

State economists put Marco Island's first-year loss under Amendment 3 at $1,074,700, and the council has called off the police outsourcing study it started over that number

Naples closed 881 home sales in June, up 16.5 percent, while inventory fell 23.4 percent and the year-to-date median price slipped to $610,000

Southwest Florida unemployment reached 5.0 percent in June, above the state rate, and construction lost 1,200 jobs over the year

Three Cape Coral areas are still under precautionary boil water notices, and the city's own map has not rescinded any of them