Amendment 11 seeks to reduce the ever-increasing financial burden caused by property taxes for seniors.

This is a constitutional amendment that will provide an additional homestead exemption for low-income seniors whose property is valued at less than $250,000, and who have resided at that property for not less than 25 years.

Unfortunately, too many of our seniors must choose every month between paying their property taxes or buying their medicine and food. Passage of Amendment 11 will help to alleviate this unconscionable situation.

The potential recipients of this tax reduction are not the big businesses, wealthy retirees or even snowbirds looking to retire and pay fewer taxes in Florida. Rather, the recipients are retirees who have spent the better part of their wage-earning years living and paying taxes in Florida. These are our parents and grandparents. They are seniors living on a fixed retirement income with truly no other resources to pay additional taxes.

It is a tax reduction for our state’s most vulnerable.

Not surprisingly, opponents of Amendment 11 take the side of government instead of the seniors who desperately need tax relief. They claim that Amendment 11 will deprive local governments of revenue.

While it's true, obviously, that government will have less revenue, the tax-and-spend balancing act must be in favor of our seniors and not government. This amendment serves as a call to action for local government to redirect our financial resources in the form of an additional homestead exemption to those who need it most

Opponents further claim that the Legislature is imposing its will on local government. This is a dishonest attempt at promoting an untruthful misconception. If the electorate adopts Amendment 11, it is not automatically in effect. Instead, the amendment provides local government with the final decision by requiring that each local government have the opportunity to implement it in their jurisdiction.

Instead of being a mandate on local government, it is simply another tool they have to provide tax relief for eligible seniors. 

While I am a proponent of limited government, I firmly believe that government is meant to serve the people. As public officials elected to represent our constituents in Tallahassee, I sponsored this legislation because of the favorable financial impact it will have on low-income seniors who live in House District 110 and throughout the state of Florida.

For the sacrifices and hardships that low-income seniors have endured, this vulnerable segment of the population merits this additional homestead exemption. As such, I respectfully request the Florida electorate to vote “yes” on Amendment 11.

Rep. Jose R. Oliva, R-Hialeah, is sponsor of Amendment 11 in the Florida House of Representatives.