Miami-Dade County is demanding that Miami Beach pay millions of dollars for homeless services across the country after the city recently withdrew a referendum asking voters whether they approved a restaurant tax to fund those services.
On Wednesday, county commissioners voted to require up to $10 million in property taxes from a city-controlled tax district around the Lincoln Road shopping area. The redevelopment district is funded by both municipal and provincial property taxes.
“We have been forced to play hardball,” Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado said.
READ MORE: Officials in Miami Beach are withdrawing the homeless tax ballot question. Votes on it do not count
After the vote, Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez, who voted against scrapping the referendum, told the Miami Herald he was shocked that the county was demanding money before the city could come up with a possible compromise.
“It’s a robbery,” Fernandez said. “There are ways to solve this. But this is not the way to do it.”
Fernandez joined other city commissioners crossing Biscayne Bay to attend a County Commission meeting, where the anger on Miami Beach over the canceled vote was hard to miss.
The first clue was a request to approve Miami Beach’s request to rename a portion of 13th Street “Gloria Estefan Way.” Sponsor Eileen Higgins, the Miami-Dade commissioner who represents South Beach, postponed that vote, along with a vote on another routine request to change Miami Beach’s street names.
Two other laws created after the city rescinded the referendum now target a pair of Miami Beach redevelopment tax districts — the one around Lincoln Road and another in the North Beach area — that allow the city to divert property tax dollars of the province. and spend them on local expenses.
Both pieces of legislation aim to replace the roughly $10 million for homeless services that Miami-Dade expected from Miami Beach if it had adopted a 1% restaurant tax that was already being levied at most restaurants across the country.
In 2023, Miami Beach commissioners voted to put the tax on the 2024 ballot, but the newly elected commissioners scrapped the referendum late last month. City commissioners who voted to end the ballot question said they were unaware of the planned referendum when they took office and saw the measure as flawed because city restaurants already pay an additional tax to fund city spending. Although the question still appeared on ballots in Miami Beach, the votes became meaningless after city commissioners withdrew the issue.
READ MORE: Miami Beach said the homeless tax referendum won’t count. The results show that it would probably work
County commissioners said they were prepared to strip Miami-Dade of money from both redevelopment districts if Miami Beach doesn’t find a new revenue stream for the county’s homeless services. Oliver Gilbert, chairman of the county board, noted that Miami-Dade authorized the creation of the North Beach district last year as part of negotiations with Miami Beach leaders, who pledged to expand homeless tax collections.
“We made a deal,” he said. “And then they backed out of the deal.”
The County Commission took no action against the North Beach district, but voted to require Miami Beach to agree to transfer $10 million in surplus funds from the Lincoln Road district.
Miami Beach Commissioner David Suarez said the city plans to bring the tax proposal back to voters in 2026, with improved language and safeguards to determine how the revenue is spent.
He told county commissioners he is not opposed to Miami Beach making payments until voters can decide on the tax, but said the city wanted to make its own proposal to Miami-Dade.
After the meeting, Fernandez released a statement saying he wanted to reject a $75 million county grant for a privately developed hotel at the Miami Beach Convention Center and use the money to increase the county’s homeless budget. “It is our moral obligation to set priorities [housing needs] about subsidies to wealthy developers,” Fernandez said.
Miami Beach regularly cracks down on people who sleep in public, with city officials sometimes taking the individuals to Miami-Dade jails at the county’s expense.
Miami-Dade’s restaurant tax funds shelters and other housing options for people experiencing homelessness, including people living on the streets of Miami Beach. But the city, along with Bal Harbor and Surfside, was exempt from the tax when the Florida Legislature first passed it in 1992. The tax also funds domestic violence programs in Miami-Dade.
County leaders lobbied both Miami Beach and Bal Harbor to vote on implementing the tax after a change in state law allowed the expansions if approved by residents. Bal Harbor voters rejected the tax Tuesday.
An unofficial voting tally from the elections department showed that 52% of Miami Beach voters supported the tax. “It would be over,” Higgins said.
Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez urged Miami-Dade to reconsider its threats.
“I think these types of retaliation are off base,” she said. “Will there also be punitive measures for Bal Harbour?”
