Monroe County Commissioner Holly Merrill Raschein joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
The legislative session is upon us with the start of 2026.
Raschein said, “So much of what the legislature accomplishes and does and works on affects us. It has a trickle down effect on the county level and then subsequently the municipal level, and they’ve already taken some significant actions, at least on the House of Representatives side, they’ve passed several pieces of legislation. I’m sure they’ll be taking those up pretty quickly when they go into session.”
The potential reduction of property taxes will be a big topic.
Raschein said, “It is something that I think is going to kind of take the air out of the room in terms of the legislative process, because it could be a major, major wrench in how we budget, those precious taxpayer dollars, what services we’re able to provide. Obviously, we can take fire and law enforcement off the table. But again, those really uniquely local services, like when somebody’s complaining about their road or a pothole or I’m really hoping one day we can get some new restrooms at Harry Harris Park. I think they’re the original that probably Harry Harris himself was still alive when they put those bathrooms in, but just stuff like that. And the everyday consumer, homeowner, absolutely it sounds fantastic. I want to have lower property taxes, but then the money has got to come from somewhere, and where does that come from?”
Funding could also be affected at the Florida Association of Counties Water and Environmental Policy Committee.
Raschein said, “I did want to give Governor DeSantis a shout out, because he fully funded the Stewardship funds in his proposed budget. And that is huge. That gives us sort of a platform to jump off on and keep working to secure those funds throughout the legislative process. We know it can get a little tricky in terms of budgets and how it’s going, depending on what happened, you’re going to have people sort of pawing over each other for dollars to try to plug some holes in anticipation of not having level funding that we’re used to, but it’s an election year, so you have a potential situation where counties pitted against state lawmakers, where you have the state legislators going, we’re going to lower your property taxes, and then you’ve got the county at the closest level to the people saying, no, no, please don’t. It’s an interesting dynamic. And again, I’m a student in political science, and I have my feelings, obviously, but it’ll be very controversial, I think, here and there. And again, it being an election year, the dynamics are going to be incredible.”
Authorization for ad valorem tax relief for long term workforce rental property will still be sought.
Raschein said, “Those sort of property taxes mean something, right? That puts money directly back into renter’s pockets, obviously, the landlord gets to keep those funds to maybe pay for improvements or whatever. And that’s a win, win. Again, if somebody really wanted to, or folks in Tallahassee really wanted to take a deep dive, there are ways to still cut taxes. I’m not going to go into the weeds on that now, but there’s still similar to the tax on rental property or the business rent tax that we finally eliminated, that took a decade, it seems like to eliminate. I think that it is possible. And again, why the county is supporting relief going back to landlords that can by keeping those taxes lower on those second properties that are only rented to workforce folks, that’s a savings I think that is meaningful and we can make happen, that we can absorb. It’s not a massive amount.”
2025 saw a lot of tough discussions.
Raschein said, “That was one of the toughest years, huge decisions we had to make, and there were lives that were changed during that process, but I’m so proud of our team. Cannot reiterate this enough about the difficult, hard work that they had to do to get us to that point. I’m proud, and we did a good job, and I think Tallahassee will recognize that and hats off to our senior leadership, because now we’ve got to turn to new revenue sources, and we need to take care of ourselves. We’re on a good journey there. I think our economy is very strong, and I hope that everybody is just looking towards 2026, for a lot of adventures, a lot of fun, a lot of health. We’re going to be working hard at Monroe County to make sure that we are in the best position possible. We’ve got our mayor is president of the Florida Association of Counties. You cannot highlight that enough. She’s going to be fighting the good fight, we’ll be there as her lieutenants to back her up. As we again go into this new year just being proud that we live in one of the most beautiful, fantastic places on the planet and not lose sight of that.”