Florida: Amendment 3. A tax cut. The firehouse says it will slow the trucks.

Florida voters will decide in November whether to slash residential property taxes. Amendment 3 needs 60 percent. It would raise the homestead exemption on non-school levies — $150,000 next year on the first slice, $250,000 by 2028 in one draft the firefighters are quoting. The States desk files Florida, not Miami-only, and a ballot that pits a tax cut against the house that answers 911.

Gov. Ron DeSantis says local budgets have fat. Public safety officials call the text a trainwreck: it does not say how fire, EMS, and storm crews get paid if the levy drops. Wayne Bernoska, Florida Professional Firefighters: nearly every department lives on property tax. Clearwater’s chief has already counted lost posts and overtime. Libraries and parks are in the same sentence.

Nearly every fire department in our state relies heavily on property taxes.

The States desk files Saturday as it is: a constitutional cut on a November ballot, a governor who will “help” without a schedule, and a bay door that still has to open when the radio goes.