Amendment 3 impact on new Rays stadium

Recent passage of the property tax cut amendment through a curveball plans to build a new baseball stadium for the Rays. Today, Hillsborough County Commissioners will discuss where to get the money for the portion they promised to pay. FOX 13's Kelly Cowan is on that story for us this morning. Good morning. Good morning to you. And depending on who you talk to, this does or does not change anything now that Amendment 3 has passed. So you have a little bit of division here on the side of some of those firm yes votes when they passed the original budget plan for this stadium. Some now saying that they may need to reconsider how this budget is going to work now that they are anticipating a major shortfall in revenues. Others though saying that they absolutely need this stadium because it's going to help Fund become an important resource. for future funding for the county as they go down the line. Now, at least one of the yes votes of those five out of seven is now saying that commissioners need to reconsider the plan to commit $800 million to help build a new race stadium in Tampa. The way that budget breaks down though, more than 80% of the county's portion of the 800 million is going to come from tourist and sales taxes. So those are revenue sources that are unaffected by the change to property taxes. But roughly $100 million still needs to come from other county funds. And of course, commissioners are bracing for a major budget squeeze. So Amendment 3 essentially triples the property tax homestead exemption for the first year starting next year. And then it increases it by five times by the following year in 2028. According to the nonpartisan Florida Policy Institute, that is expected to cause a shortfall of nearly a billion dollars in revenue over the first two years for Hillsborough County. So we are talking about a major revenue source loss. Stadium supporters, though, are arguing that the project would help offset those losses by generating new tax revenue in an area where currently none exists. Commissioner Harry Cohen says they're already past the point of no return On getting this stadium built. I think that we saw hosting the World Series was a huge economic boom to the region. I think everyone saw the excitement and community pride that was created by it. So as far as I'm concerned, we're very enthusiastic here and on the Hillsborough side of the bay to keep the deal moving forward. Meanwhile, we also have the city of Tampa, who has agreed to contribute some $80 million, but they are going to fund that through bonds. So that will cost the city some interest, but the property tax changes are not expected to impact that plan. So what commissioners are discussing today is adding the stadium to the list of approved projects that can be funded by the CIT or community investment tax. That's the half penny sales tax that we have here in Hillsborough County. And that is used to fund all kinds of infrastructure projects like roadways, transportation, public safety, and yes, stadiums. All right. Kelly Cowan, live for us this morning. Kelly, thank you.