Florida House Rep. Chase Tremont told the Port Orange City Council that state lawmakers are actively studying proposals to change or eliminate property taxes but cautioned that any change must preserve the revenue that funds local services.

"If a government can confiscate your home for lack of paying basically what, for lack of a better term, could be considered a rent, then you don't really own it," Tremont said during a legislative update to the council. He said he serves on the Select Committee on Property Taxes and that the panel includes former city and county officials who understand local budgets.

Tremont said advocates for reducing or removing ad valorem taxes share concerns about homeowners’ long-term costs, but he emphasized the practical challenge of replacing municipal revenue streams. "I don't perceive of it being that way," he said of the idea that cities could simply absorb the loss of property tax revenue. He noted that essential public services — police, fire, EMS and code enforcement — are funded by those local revenues.

Tremont urged the legislature to develop a statewide tool municipal finance teams could use to model revenue-replacement scenarios. "There needs to be a model or a way to plug in that information to see where is the shortfalls gonna where are they gonna come and how do you make them up," he said, adding that a standard model would let each municipality estimate impacts and feed that analysis back to lawmakers.

Council members pressed him on equity concerns for seniors and low-income homeowners and on how any shift to sales tax or other statewide revenue sources would be distributed. Tremont said distribution formulas are likely to be discussed and warned of the risk that a state-decided allocation could not match local service demands.

Tremont also credited Port Orange’s staff and elected officials with returning state appropriations to the city this year, calling the city's results a strong example of sustained advocacy in Tallahassee. "Every city in District 30 that asked for funding, received funding," he said, noting the city’s success despite a veto on one Ponce Inlet project.

The session closed with council members thanking Tremont for staying engaged with city staff and asking him to continue communicating developments from his committee.