With less than a month before Florida voters decide the fate of Amendment 3, a new wave of attack ads has hit the airwaves, and nobody seems to know who paid for them. The spots carry a disclaimer naming a group called A Better Florida, but state records show no active entity by that name, and the ads look nearly identical to spots already running from the campaign fighting the measure.
A Nonprofit That Barely Exists on Paper
According to WESH 2, the new ads are sponsored by A Better Florida, a nonprofit organized as a 501(c)(4), a type of group required to disclose only a name, not the address and other details political committees must provide. WESH 2 investigative reporter Greg Fox found that ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer lists the organization's work as civil rights, social action, and advocacy, but notes it has been inactive for the past few years. Florida's Division of Corporations lists no active entity named A Better Florida, and the state's Division of Elections lists no active committee by that name either.
What makes the ads notable isn't just the opaque sponsor, it's the content. The new A Better Florida spots closely resemble an ad called Math that's already running from the Save Our Services campaign, the coalition organized to defeat Amendment 3. A spokesperson for that No on 3 effort told WESH 2 the campaign has no idea who or which group is behind the copycat ads, a strange twist given that the messaging appears to echo their own.
What Amendment 3 Would Actually Do
The measure itself has been building toward the November 3 election since the Florida Legislature placed it on the ballot during a June 2026 special legislative session, passing House Joint Resolution 1-F by a 75–26 vote in the House and a 30–9 vote in the Senate, according to the Florida Policy Institute. If approved, Amendment 3 would expand the homestead exemption for non-school property taxes from $50,000 to $150,000 starting January 1, 2027, then to $250,000 the following year, with inflation adjustments kicking in by 2029, per Florida Realtors. The measure would also halve the annual cap on assessed value growth for non-homestead properties, including commercial real estate, rental units, second homes, and vacant land, from 10 percent to 5 percent beginning the same year.
School district levies, which make up roughly 40 percent of the average Florida property tax bill, are excluded from the exemption increases and stay capped under the existing $25,000 homestead exemption, according to the Atlantic Title Firm. New Florida residents who establish homestead after December 31, 2026 would also be treated differently, receiving only the baseline exemption for their first four years before qualifying for the expanded break in year five.
Who's Paying For What
Money is flowing heavily toward one side of this fight. Florida Realtors has contributed $18 million to the Vote Yes on 3 campaign and spent more than $4 million directly on advertising, per WESH 2's reporting, while the Vote No on 3 campaign has raised less than $500,000. That financial mismatch hasn't stopped the opposition from building a broad coalition: the Florida Sheriffs Association, the police chiefs association, fire unions, and police unions have all come out against the measure, according to WESH 2's reporting, with law enforcement and fire groups opposing it for weeks.
Yes on 3 mailers argue the initiative will help homeowners, renters, and businesses save money, emphasizing that Floridians need tax relief, while opposition ads warn the measure guts the largest funding source for public safety in Florida and would make communities less safe. The fiscal numbers behind those warnings are substantial: the Legislature's Revenue Estimating Conference projects Amendment 3 would cut local non-school property tax collections statewide by $45.84 billion over its first five years, according to Florida TaxWatch. Those losses start at $4.93 billion in the first fiscal year and climb to $11.83 billion annually by 2031-32, with county commissions projected to absorb 65 percent of the hit.
Opposition Organizes, Voters Weigh Tools
The formal opposition effort, Save Our Services — No on 3, was organized in July 2026 by Floridians for Shared Prosperity and is chaired by Holly Bullard of the Florida Policy Institute, backed by labor unions, nonprofits, and more than 30 Democratic state lawmakers, according to Florida Politics. To help voters sort through competing claims, the Florida Policy Institute launched a zip-code-searchable online tool in late September, powered by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, letting residents look up estimated public service budget cuts in their own cities and counties, as reported by WLRN.
That debate has already played out across Florida communities in recent weeks, from Miami-Dade officials warning of a $390 million budget hole to Seminole County raising alarms over 300 sheriff positions and $41 million in funding. Whoever is behind the newest round of ads, the underlying fight over Amendment 3's tradeoffs between guaranteed tax savings and local government budgets is unlikely to quiet down before Floridians head to the polls on November 3.
