The Osceola Chamber again packed a banquet room at the Gaylord Palms convention center Friday, when it gathered the county’s legislative delegation for an update on the 2026 session in Tallahassee, the bills passed and how they will affect the county.
This year, with property tax reform and a charter amendment that would lower the assessed taxable value of homesteaded property (in basic terms, a resident’s primary residence) appearing on the November election ballot statewide, local government leaders also spoke about the expected impacts if the measure passes by getting 60% of the statewide vote.
State law dictates that governments can “educate” its constituents about the charter amendment, but cannot “advocate” for or about it. Osceola County Manager Don Fisher said that notion guided what he could, and would, say about it.
But the legislators also spoke a bit about that. Rep. Jose Alvarez (District 46), who appeared with Reps. Leonard Spencer (45) and Erika Booth (35) and Sen. Kristen Arrington (District 25), said as the former Kissimmee mayor he put his “mayor hat” on a lot during session when the tax proposal came up.
“How is this going to affect our housing market?” he asked. “Although it sounds like it’s a tax savings, if it would be a taxation, so (properties not homesteads) are going to have to pay for it, and our renters are going to suffer because that (cost) would be passed down to them. So look long and hard on how that affects you. It sounds like a savings, but someone has to pay for a lot of our essential services that are so important to our constituents and our businesses.”
Arrington also identified the property tax amendment as an issue constituents should educate themselves on. Spencer also highlighted the emergence of artificial intelligence in the business community that should be on business owners’ radar. Booth spoke of how the Chamber is keeping her informed on what’s up locally and identified affordability as a key issue.
“I do work in Tallahassee but I come home every single weekend because (Tallahassee) is not my home,” she said/ “My home is you, I see you all the time and I need to continue seeing what I don’t get to see, so I rely on the chamber I rely on our city governments.”
(Rep. Paula Stark was not in attendance, citing a family issue; earlier in the week her appeal to a Tallahassee court to be placed on the 2026 election ballot after state officials said her paperwork was incomplete was denied.)
But it was those local leaders who gave their general overview of the potential effects of the property tax amendment— the large topic hanging over the room. Fisher noted that 55% of households in the unincorporated county have a homestead—the amount taken right off the top of their taxable value which would increase from $25,000 or $50,000 to $150,000 in Fiscal Year 202728 and $250,000 the year after that under the legislation, with a provision to index it upward along with inflation beyond that. In St. Cloud, that number is 67%, City Manager Veronica Miller said.
“Ad valorem funding doesn’t fully cover our police and fire departments,” she said.
Kissimmee City Manager Mike Steigerwald said the hardest part of the next few months is not knowing what will happen—in Kissimmee or Tallahassee.
“I can’t tell you whether my elected officials are going to choose to raise the millage rate or increase assessment fees. That’s something that we’re still working through,” he said. “But even if they don’t, you’re certainly going to feel it. I let our vendors know it’s a very good likelihood this is going to impact you and if it passes, we’re going to be hiring less of you and those that we hire will do less stuff for us.”
School Superintendent Dr. Mark Shanoff noted that Osceola’s school district has risen to No. 3 among Florida’s 67 counties in graduate college attendance thanks to Osceola Prosper, a county program that pays the tuition for county high school graduates for Associates degrees at Valencia College or certification programs at Osceola Technical College; the property tax amendment likely puts that in jeopardy.
The news wasn’t all bad from local officials. The city managers spoke about Kissimmee Airport expansions to accept international travel and using old golf course property south of the runways, and projects in the downtowns. Work will soon start in Kissimmee on two hotel projects, one including a new convention center on the site of the soonto- be-demolished Civic Center and another around the Toho Square Garage, and St. Cloud’s $60 million P3 project that will include residential, commercial, retail and other mixed-use space with a parking garage. Shanoff touted the county’s highest ever graduation rate in 2026, and Fisher spoke of ongoing nine-figure South Korean tech company investments in NeoCity that should soon result in hundreds of high-paying jobs in the nanosensor sector.
At the event the Chamber awarded its Distinguished Public Service Award to Rep. Booth. The award “celebrates an elected official who consistently provides leadership on issues of importance to the Chamber and member businesses,” the Chamber said.
