To fix budget, Miami-Dade mayor floats higher gas tax, cuts to charities and parks
Published in News & Features
MIAMI — With Miami-Dade County’s government facing a budget deficit of more than $400 million in 2026, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is considering historic spending cuts, as well as increases in transit fares, tolls and a sales tax on gasoline, according to multiple sources briefed on recent versions of the spending blueprint.
In private briefings, Levine Cava and top aides are outlining what’s likely the most austere budget proposal in county government since the bruising years following the 2008 housing crash. The proposal includes an unknown number of layoffs and substantial spending cuts, including about $25 million from the Parks department and slashing about $40 million from county nonprofit grants, according to the sources briefed on the plan.
Property-tax rates remain flat in the budget proposal, which Levine Cava must present to the public by July 15 under county rules.
Representatives for the administration declined to respond to the Miami Herald’s request for clarity or more information about the leaked information on the budget proposal. But the mayor’s office released a statement from Levine Cava that emphasized the financial challenges facing Miami-Dade, including cuts in state and federal funding and higher local expenses from having to fund newly independent county agencies, including the Sheriff’s Office.
“In the face of these headwinds, we have made difficult choices to balance our budget while minimizing impacts to our residents and employees as much as possible,” she said.
Sources said the budget cuts Levine Cava proposed in recent briefings include:
•Severe cuts to the roughly $55 million pool of county tax revenue that Miami-Dade uses to subsidize nonprofit groups. Lavern Spicer runs the Curley’s House food bank near Liberty City, which received more than $200,000 in county payments last year, according to online records. She said she’s aware of potential funding cuts from the county to charities like Curley’s House but that it’s too early to predict the consequences. “I’m just waiting to hear,” she said.
•Increasing a 3% countywide sales tax on gasoline to 5% to raise money for transportation and transit.
•A sharp cut in the county’s parks system, which is budgeted to cost about $290 million to run this year. Levine Cava is reportedly contemplating $25 million in savings from the Parks budget, but the details aren’t known.
•Raising fares for county buses and Metrorail trains from $2.25 to $2.75 a ride. Tolls on two county bridges, the Rickenbacker and Venetian causeways, would increase by a dollar, to $3.25.
•Eliminating the free MetroConnect transit shuttles, an Uber-like service that provides short rides within 13 zones across Miami-Dade where transit options are considered sparse. The proposal already has County Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez warning of elderly residents in his district being stranded because MetroConnect was launched to compensate for bus routes that were eliminated in recent years. “I’m certainly looking at opportunities to maintain the service in some way, shape or form,” he said, adding that might include charging riders fares.
•Merging multiple departments. The county’s social-services arm, Community Action and Human Services, would merge with Juvenile Services into the Community Services Department. Cultural Affairs would merge into the Library Department, which is funded by its own dedicated property tax.
•Raiding reserves set aside for future projects in the county’s SMART Plan transit blueprint. Those projects include a Metrorail extension north to Hard Rock Stadium and a new Metromover line between downtown Miami and South Beach. The $82 million reported in the transit fund last year is an eyedropper’s worth of funding compared to the more than $1 billion that either SMART project would cost, but the reserves are a key part of the county’s plan to pursue federal and state matching grants for transit expansion.
While Levine Cava proposes the county budget, it takes a majority vote among the 13 county commissioners to enact it. Mayors regularly change their initial budget proposals to craft a spending plan that has enough support from the commission to pass in September.
“The question is, how do you restructure this government so it can be leaner? It needs to be leaner for the next two or three years,” Commissioner Raquel Regalado said in an interview.
While Levine Cava and commissioners have for months warned of coming cuts, the scattered details emerging from the briefings are the first look at potential consequences from the growing gap between forecasted tax revenues and the cost of maintaining existing county services and staff.
Part of the current revenue strain comes from new challenges, including state cuts in transit taxes and budget demands from the elected heads of two newly independent offices: sheriff and tax collector.
It also comes from budget decisions Levine Cava and commissioners made in the last five years, including property-tax rate cuts and spending boosts that were approved when federal COVID aid was flowing and real estate values were surging.
Countywide spending, funded mostly by property taxes, increased 8% this year to $3.2 billion. The county workforce grew by just 1% to about 31,000 positions in the 2025 budget year, which ends Sept. 30.
While Miami-Dade’s budget hit $12.8 billion overall this year, most of the current strain stems from the $3.2 billion pool of expenses that rely on property taxes, sales taxes and other revenues in county general funds that pay for police, jails, parks and transit.
At a town hall in May on the coming budget decisions, Levine Cava said projected expenses in the general funds exceed revenue by nearly $390 million. Add in the full budget requests from Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz and Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez and the gap crossed the $470 million mark.
Budget projections took another hit in recent weeks when Florida’s 2026 budget ended a tax on commercial leases that provided Miami-Dade with roughly $27 million a year for transit, roads and sidewalks. County administrators say they’ve already seen some federal dollar cutbacks under President Donald Trump, and they’re expecting aid from Washington to drop in the coming years.
It’s not known how much Levine Cava will recommend giving to Cordero-Stutz, who has requested $936 million.
A budget summary provided by a Cordero-Stutz spokesperson shows the request is $93 million over the equivalent budget for law enforcement this year, which included the final two months of existence for the county police department before it became an independent sheriff’s office in January under a state-mandated change.
The summary says the extra dollars would go to pay increases for officers that are mandated by union contracts negotiated by Levine Cava’s administration and filling vacant positions for officers and the agency’s civilian staff.
State rules also allow Fernandez as tax collector to retain 2% of the county’s property-tax revenue to fund his newly independent office, which inherited Florida’s driver’s-license offices but no state funds to run them.
County commissioners will approve the final budget in September, following a pair of public meetings that can stretch into the morning hours when a spending plan sparks controversy.
On Wednesday, commissioners are scheduled to vote on Levine Cava’s proposal to keep tax rates flat — legislation that would still allow for lower rates during the final budget adoption in the fall.
In a memo to commissioners recommending the flat tax rates, Levine Cava argued against efforts to lower the rates this year in the face of the austerity budget she’ll send them next week.
Lowering the rates “would ensure that more drastic service adjustments will be required in order to close the funding gap,” she wrote.
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