Presented to the Bond Oversight Committee on August 28, 2017, this report examines the SMART program quarterly report for Q4 of FY2017.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Mon., April 21, 2025 CONTACT: Christina Johnson, christina@on3pr.com, 850.391.5040 Tallahassee, Fla. – Florida TaxWatch announced that today, Mon., April 21, is Florida Taxpayer Independence Day 2025. This
Tallahassee, Fla. – Florida TaxWatch is announcing that tomorrow, Thurs., April 18 is Florida Taxpayer Independence Day 2024. This symbolic occasion assumes that every dollar
Where and how well our school districts spend our education dollars can have a profound impact on student academic achievement and success. Historically, education makes up about one-fourth of Florida’s total budget. Florida TaxWatch believes that shifting education spending away from administrative and other expenses and toward classroom/instructional expenses is beneficial.
Hialeah Gardens, Fla. – Today, Fri., March 18, Florida TaxWatch (FTW) will proudly announce that Jose “Tiger” Nunez, immediate past principal of Mater Academy Charter High School in Miami-Dade County, is among the nine winners of the Florida TaxWatch 2021-22 Principal Leadership Awards (PLA). Through the program, Nunez has also identified one deserving student to receive a full two-year Florida College Scholarship.
One only needs to look at the experience of other states that have reduced or eliminated their tourism marketing efforts to understand what will happen if VISIT FLORIDA is eliminated. States like Colorado and Washington that have drastically cut or eliminated their investment in travel promotion have experienced immediate and long-term negative economic impacts. Destinations that fail to invest consistently in travel promotion will see visitors, jobs, and tax revenues go elsewhere. Should Florida choose to follow suit, tourism and the economic activity and taxes it generates will certainly decline.
The 2019 Edition of this annual pocket guide gives taxpayers and elected officials great insight as to how Florida’s taxes compare to other states and the national average across a wide variety of metrics.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – On Sunday, April 14, Floridians will celebrate the first day of the year where taxpayers are finally earning money for themselves and not for the tax collector. Taxpayer Independence Day, calculated by Florida TaxWatch, accepts that every dollar earned since January 1 goes to pay federal, state, and local obligations. This year, it will take the average Florida family 103 out of 365 days – or almost three and a half months – to satisfy its tax obligations. Looking at it another way, it takes two hours and 15 minutes of every eight-hour workday to earn enough to pay your taxes.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A new report by Florida’s premier independent taxpayer research institute of forty years, Florida TaxWatch, provides an update of the true average cost of educating a K-12 public school student in Florida. The government watchdog previously released a similar independent study in March 2017 that considered all categories of expenditures necessary for the operation of public schools.
Actual net GR collections for the fiscal year that that just ended exceeded the last estimate (February 2018, adjusted for legislative changes) by $205.2 million (0.66 percent). This will be added to the unobligated FY2018-19 GR (cash reserve) balance of $1.026 billion to be carried forward to the next budget year (FY2019-20). These numbers, along with the current cycle of the state’s Estimating Conferences, can begin to define the fiscal outlook for the next state budget that will be developed by the 2019 Legislature.
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