While Byron Donalds hasn’t received the backing of Gov. Ron DeSantis in his quest to succeed him as Governor of Florida next year, the U.S. House member from Naples has no problem showering the love on the state’s chief executive.
“We have the best Governor in America right now,” Donalds said Saturday during a campaign appearance in Tampa. “I don’t play political games. He’s the best. We have to build on what he has done and take our state to a whole ‘nother level.”
Donalds, the Trump-endorsed early frontrunner for the Republican nomination for Governor next year, got deep into policy prescriptions while addressing a crowd of at least 150 people who gathered at La Teresita, a Cuban eatery in the city’s Hispanic district.
The candidate spent nearly half of his hour-long visit answering questions submitted in advance by members of the audience.
The property tax issue
One such query asked whether he would support a proposal on the November 2026 ballot to eliminate or substantially reduce property taxes, “without all the legal jargon, so that one can understand in simple terms what they’re voting for?”
“That second part is going to be really hard,” Donalds immediately responded.
“Would I love to eliminate property taxes? Yes,” he said. However, “If we eliminate property taxes in the state of Florida, we’d have to double the sales tax.”
He went on to say that doubling the 6% sales tax statewide would lead to a decrease in tourism from working people and thus isn’t a real option (the co-chair of the select committee in the Florida House studying the issue has already said[1] that the total elimination of property taxes is a non-starter).
Instead, Donalds offered a couple of remedies, including raising the homestead exemption from $50,000 to between $300,000 and $400,000.
“So, you do that on homesteaded property, and then you create a harder cap that would have to apply for the school taxes,” he said. “Because Save Our Homes and all the other homesteaded exemptions do not apply to school districts. They only apply to the cities and the counties. … It has to apply to [school] districts as well to see a real decrease in property taxes.”
Another suggestion he made was that the county tax collector should instead set the millage rate assessed by local governments.
And he said that if elected, he would continue the DOGE efforts enacted by Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia. “Everybody’s budget is going to be examined. Every year. All the time. Not just local. But state as well.”
He called the idea of property tax reform a step in the right direction, ultimately, “because at the end of the day, we can’t have people being priced out of their homes. We can’t have it. I don’t care what project you got going on in your local government. If you’re pricing people out, then guess what? That’s a bad project. You need to go back to the drawing board.”
He’s no longer all about charter schools
Donalds, who served in the Legislature from 2016 to 2020 before moving on to Congress, said he’s evolved in his thinking on one form of education policy.
“When I first got to the Legislature, I used to think that charter schools were the only thing that could change education, and I thought it was ‘all charters, all the time,’” he said.
And now?
“I’ve gotten off of that,” he said. “I’m agnostic when it comes to schools. In terms of which schools are allowed and which schools are not. That’s one of the reasons why I am such a vehement supporter and believer in parental empowerment and true school choice.”
He said state educators need to start looking at so-called “co-locational schools” as a remedy for school districts suddenly populated with fewer students but the same number of physical buildings.
“If there’s a fledgling charter school, a fledgling private school, or a fledgling parochial religious school and they’re trying to get started and parents are choosing them, why is the School District having a building that’s half empty? Co-locate the schools. Allow those fledgling schools to come up.”
And he said it’s time to figure out how to build nonpublic school infrastructure, an idea he acknowledges is “outside the box.”
“If our parents are choosing nonpublic options, and we fund education because we believe that funding education is in the interest of the state and the future of the state, then we are going to have to look at solutions for nonpublic schools,” he said. “I think you can do it in a way that the taxpayer actually gets a semblance of a return and they’re not left holding the bag. So there’s a way to be able to deliver that.”
Another idea? Microschools, described by EdChoice[2] as a reimagining of the one-room schoolhouse, feature small class sizes and curricula tailored to meet the needs of each class.
“Parents are saying, ‘You know what, we’re going to do a microschool. I think we should be open to all of that,” he said. Florida lawmakers passed a bill (HB 1285[3]) in the 2024 Session that opened more options for school locations in the state. The measure allows private charter schools and microschools to rent or purchase spaces, such as churches, libraries, community centers, theaters, or museums, in the state to operate in.
One proposal that Donalds doesn’t appear to be on the same wavelength with Gov. DeSantis is to ban all vaccine mandates[4] in Florida.
“We’re going to look at all the things that are rulemaking, not statutory,” he told the Phoenix as he exited the stage. “Stuff that’s statutory, like mRNA vaccines? Probably not going to touch that.”
___
Mitch Perry reports via Florida Phoenix[5], part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: [email protected][6].
Post Views: 0
References
- ^ already said (baynews9.com)
- ^ EdChoice (www.edchoice.org)
- ^ HB 1285 (flsenate.gov)
- ^ ban all vaccine mandates (floridaphoenix.com)
- ^ Florida Phoenix (floridaphoenix.com)
- ^ [email protected] (floridapolitics.com)