Author: Owen E. Richason IV
-
Parking at Pinellas County’s most popular beach parks is about to get more expensive, and annual passes already have. County leaders approved higher parking fees for Fort De Soto, Sand Key and Fred Howard parks as part of the newly adopted county budget. Starting Dec. 1, the flat $6 daily parking rate gives way to…
·
-
Students hoping to earn a Bright Futures scholarship as part of the Class of 2028 will need higher standardized test scores than their predecessors, under new benchmarks set by the Florida Department of Education. For the top-tier Academic Scholars award, graduating seniors in 2028 must post a 1350 on the SAT, up 20 points from…
·
-
Florida’s minimum wage rose to $15 an hour on Wednesday, the last of the scheduled annual increases voters approved in a 2020 constitutional amendment. The wage climbed by $1 a year after the amendment took effect in 2021, and it will be adjusted annually for inflation from here. When voters passed the measure, the state…
·
-
Florida voters will decide in November whether to cap annual property tax increases for residential rental homes. Additionally, Amendment 3 would also expand the homestead exemption for homeowners. Under current law, a rental property’s taxable value can rise by up to 10% a year. Amendment 3 would lower that cap to 5%. Rental properties do…
·
-
A Pinellas County lawmaker says the City of Seminole crossed a legal line by using taxpayer-funded communications to steer residents toward voting against Amendment 3, the statewide property tax proposal on the November ballot. Republican state Rep. Berny Jacques, whose district includes Seminole, sent a letter to Mayor Leslie Waters arguing that the city’s website…
·
-
Florida’s taxpayers aren’t imagining it. Over the past year, a wave of state audits led by Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia has reviewed dozens of Florida jurisdictions and uncovered over $1.9 billion in excessive local spending that far outpaces population growth and inflation. The findings reveal a consistent pattern: local governments capturing property tax windfalls…
-
Florida’s regulated electric monopolies have won nearly everything they have asked for in recent rate cases, and the state’s own consumer advocate is now taking the fight to the Florida Supreme Court. A Record Increase, Approved by Consensus Florida Power & Light asked regulators in February 2025 for a $9.819 billion increase and an 11.9…
·
-
Gov. Ron DeSantis says Florida taxpayers have earned relief, and he promises no rural community will pay the price. Speaking to reporters Thursday, DeSantis said the state would step in with grants for rural communities that lose revenue if voters pass Amendment 3 in November. The measure would raise the state’s homestead exemption and, if…
·
-
Starting Oct. 1, Florida landlords will finally have a real weapon against a rental fraud epidemic that has ballooned with the rise of artificial intelligence — even as advocacy groups push back against holding scammers criminally accountable. House Bill 1293, signed into law in June, makes it a third-degree felony to knowingly use forged financial…
·
-
Florida ranks 10th in the country for grocery prices. That is not a rumor from the checkout line. It is the first-quarter 2026 grocery cost index compiled by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center and mapped by Visual Capitalist. The national benchmark is 100. Florida sits at 105.7, or 5.7 percent above average. Hawaii…
·
-
Brightline’s high-speed rail operation is leaning on fresh outside cash to stay afloat, even as several of the company’s own parent entities file for bankruptcy protection — a restructuring the company is working hard to frame as good news. Brightline Trains Florida LLC announced Friday it has secured nearly $500 million in new financing through…
·
-
Florida’s minimum wage climbs to $15 an hour next week, with the tipped-worker floor rising to nearly $12. The increase is the last scheduled jump under the 2020 constitutional amendment. After that, annual inflation adjustments take over. Along Gulf Boulevard in Indian Rocks Beach, restaurant and shop owners say they have already spent years absorbing…
·
-
A new report says Florida renters could end up paying more in property taxes if Amendment 3 passes, but the projected increase depends on local governments raising rates instead of trimming budgets. The Florida Housing Coalition released the report, written by tax-policy analyst Jared Walczak. It estimates that if local governments raise property-tax rates to…
·
-
A 404-unit luxury apartment community on the Anclote River in Tarpon Springs opens Thursday after more than five years of planning, public hearings, and neighborhood opposition. The Caroline at Anclote Harbor sits on about 72 acres. Developers say roughly 24 acres were set aside for buildings; more than 30 acres of wetlands and bald-eagle habitat…
·
-
Hillsborough County Public Schools is asking voters to renew its half-penny sales tax for another 10 years, and the pitch includes a number likely to catch taxpayers’ attention: the district has already spent more than $1.326 billion from the same tax since voters first approved it in 2018. The renewal referendum will appear on the…
·
-
Florida Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworsky has approved rate reductions for four private homeowners carriers covering more than 62,000 policies at renewal. The cuts run as high as 10.4 percent. Kin Insurance separately announced average reductions of more than 20 percent for customers in Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties. Those numbers would have sounded implausible…
·
-
Pinellas County Schools is pushing back its second round of community meetings on proposed school closures until after an Oct. 6 School Board workshop, giving board members more time to sort through recommendations that parents say don’t hold up to scrutiny. Superintendent Kevin Hendrick announced the delay Tuesday night, with new meeting dates to be…
·
-
Pinellas County Schools is staring at a number it can no longer paper over. The district was built for roughly 115,000 students. It now educates about 70,000. Officials put unused seats at more than 45,000. Seven campuses are up for closure, with a final board vote set for October 13. District leaders say the package…
·
-
As Florida homeowners look ahead to a possible tax break in November, some local fire officials are warning that Amendment 3’s proposed expansion of the homestead exemption could squeeze their budgets — even as the measure’s backers argue relief is overdue for residents already stretched thin by rising costs. The amendment, which needs 60% voter…
·
-
Cities across Florida are bracing for tighter budgets as voters prepare to decide in November whether to expand the state’s homestead property tax exemption — and Clearwater is already trimming ahead of the vote. Amendment 3, which needs 60% approval to pass, would lower property tax bills for homeowners statewide. In Clearwater alone, city leaders…
·
-
Fatal traffic crashes are falling across Hillsborough County, and the most serious ones are clustering on a small number of roads. Local, city and state data show the trend, and Tampa officials say they are targeting those stretches. Hillsborough County’s September traffic safety report counts 67 fatal crashes from the start of the year through…
·
-
Most parents say a properly buckled child is the first thing on their minds before any trip. A new AAA study suggests many are getting it wrong without knowing it. The study, based on more than 100,000 car seat inspections nationwide, found that most children are not buckled up correctly. In Florida, AAA spokesman Mark…
·
-
Florida’s minimum wage rises to $15 an hour on Wednesday, Sept. 30. The increase caps a run of $1 annual raises that began when the rate reached $10 in 2021. Restaurant owners, who employ many of the state’s lowest-paid workers, are already working out what it will mean for their businesses. Employers of tipped staff…
·
-
Largo’s wastewater treatment plant made it through the 2024 hurricanes without shutting down. The city is now paying to find out how much closer the next storm could come to changing that. Largo commissioners approved $173,000 over the summer for a storm flooding and surge resiliency study. They hired an engineering consultant based in St.…
·
-
While Congress has spent years debating AI regulation without passing meaningful consumer protections, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is moving forward with state-level action against the robocalls, robotexts, and AI voice scams flooding residents’ phones daily. Uthmeier unveiled the Florida Anti-Spam Communications Act at a press conference in Pembroke Pines Thursday, proposing to give his…
·
-
At a time when many four-year degrees leave graduates with debt and no clear job prospects, the University of South Florida St. Petersburg is trying something refreshingly direct: training nursing students for the workforce from the moment they set foot on campus. For the first time, incoming freshmen can enroll straight into a four-year bachelor’s…
·
-
With just days left before developers must submit bids for nearly 25 acres of prime, taxpayer-owned land in downtown Clearwater, Pinellas County officials admit they still don’t have a single formal proposal in hand — and residents are being told to simply wait and see. The county’s 90-day bidding window for the redevelopment of 17…
·
-
Florida officials are weighing a new rule that would bar undocumented immigrants from enrolling in the state’s career and technical education programs, extending a policy shift that began earlier this year with new restrictions on undocumented students at public universities. The State Board of Education is scheduled to take up the proposal Wednesday. If adopted,…
·
-
Pinellas County Schools is moving toward closing seven underused campuses in a plan district leaders say would eliminate nearly 5,000 empty seats and save taxpayers roughly $25 million a year, even as some parents pushed back at emotional town hall meetings this week. The schools recommended for closure are Sexton, Blanton, Bear Creek, Tarpon Springs…
·
-
Florida is moving to put guardrails on artificial intelligence in higher education, with the State Board of Education set to review a proposed statewide rule Wednesday that would require every Florida College System institution to adopt formal AI policies for students, staff and guests. The rule would direct each college’s Board of Trustees to set…
·
-
A city-hosted town hall billed as an informational session on the November property tax amendment turned into a 90-minute showdown after a state lawmaker accused Largo of trying to use taxpayer money to campaign against a tax cut — and forced his way onto the panel to stop it. State Rep. Berny Jacques, R-Seminole, opened…
·
-
Homeowners who pay a contractor in full for work on their property are discovering that doing everything right still isn’t enough to protect them financially — a gap in Florida law that consumer attorneys say catches too many people off guard. Under state law, if a contractor fails to pay the subcontractors or suppliers who…
·
-
Rhonda Siegel did what conscientious homeowners are told to do. She called her broker before Hurricane Helene made landfall, confirmed she had both homeowners and flood insurance, and was told she was covered. When storm surge hit her one-story Clearwater Beach home on Sept. 26, 2024, she discovered how little that assurance was worth. Siegel…
·
-
Pinellas County Schools spent more than $900,000 upgrading John M. Sexton Elementary over the past five years. Now the district wants to close it — and hand the building to an unnamed nonprofit it won’t yet identify. Sexton is one of seven schools Superintendent Kevin Hendrick has recommended for closure as the district cites declining…
·
-
St. Pete city officials want to build a park beneath Interstate 275. They don’t yet own the land, haven’t secured the money, and are working on a decade-long timeline — but the master plan cleared its first procedural hurdle this week anyway. St. Petersburg’s Public Services and Infrastructure Committee reviewed a detailed draft of the…
·
-
An international criminal organization broke into a Florida state database using nothing more sophisticated than a police employee’s login credentials, which had been improperly stored on a personal device. State officials still won’t say how many drivers were affected, what information was taken, or who was responsible. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor…
·
-
A long-delayed accounting of Florida’s disaster spending fund shows the state is sitting on more than $400 million in unpaid bills tied to its immigration enforcement operations, but the numbers tell a more complicated story than “the state can’t pay its bills”: Florida is still waiting on more than half a billion dollars in reimbursements…
·
-
Mike Moran ran for Sarasota County tax collector in 2024 on a promise to root out government waste. Two years later, records show his office has increased monthly spending by more than 50% compared to his predecessor, sought double-digit budget hikes in back-to-back years, and paid out more than $500,000 to consultants, lobbyists and a…
·
-
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor is telling residents that if they vote themselves a property tax break in November, City Hall will simply find another way to bill them for it. Amendment 3, headed to Florida voters this fall, would phase out property taxes on homesteaded properties by raising the homestead exemption in stages — to…
·
-
A coalition of environmental and progressive advocacy groups launched a petition drive this week to ask voters to force the city into taking over its electric grid from Duke Energy — a move that, by the industry’s own estimate, could cost St. Petersburg residents between $2.7 billion and $4.1 billion. The group, Public Power St.…
·
-
Manatee County Sheriff’s deputies are stepping up patrols across 33 high-crash locations this year, funded by a $78,000 state grant — a modest price tag next to the human cost of a problem that’s landed the county among Florida’s worst 25 for serious and fatal pedestrian and bicycle crashes. The high-visibility enforcement campaign, now in…
·
-
For years, Pinellas County kept funding buildings the birth rate had already emptied out. On Thursday, Superintendent Kevin Hendrick put a number on that avoidance: 45,000 empty seats district-wide, and a recommendation to close seven schools that the enrollment numbers can no longer support. The list — Tarpon Springs Fundamental, Kings Highway, Azalea, Blanton, Bear…
·
-
State regulators are moving forward on a proposal that could put Florida taxpayers on the hook for roughly $30 million to acquire nearly 28 acres of beachfront property at Mandalay Point, on the northern tip of Clearwater Beach, through the state’s Florida Forever land-buying program. The property, which sits across Dunedin Pass from Caladesi Island…
·