Brevard shifts nearly $890,000 in tourist tax to fully cover ocean lifeguards ahead of Amendment 3 vote

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Brevard County commissioners have shifted nearly $890,000 in tourist-tax dollars so the county's bed tax can fully cover ocean lifeguards, a move Florida Today ties to protecting the program from cuts if voters approve a major property-tax amendment this November.

At their Sept. 15 meeting, commissioners amended the Tourist Development Office's annual marketing and media plan to move $889,949 from unallocated tourist-tax capital funds into the marketing fund, according to Talk of Titusville. County staff said the plan's overall budget was about $15.28 million, including lifeguard costs and the event-grant program; roughly $11.96 million was described as available for marketing and promotional work. The change is expected to remove the same amount from the county's general-fund obligation, leaving about $1.8 million in the tourism capital fund. Commissioners the same day also approved 45 Tourist Development Council cultural and sports-event grants totaling $664,120 for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

The tourism tax is a 5% bed tax charged on hotel rooms and short-term rentals that typically funds tourism marketing for the Space Coast, Florida Today reported. County spokesman Don Walker said the change doesn't actually add money to the general fund. "No money goes into the General Fund, it just doesn't come out of the general fund," Walker said. "It puts less pressure on the general fund, is the way it was described at the Board meeting."

Commissioner Rita Pritchett, who represents District 1, pushed for the change as a way to free up money elsewhere in the county budget. "I personally would like to recommend that we put all of the lifeguards on this at this time to alleviate some of the pressure that's going to be on the general fund," Pritchett said, according to Florida Today. Commissioner Rob Feltner said fully funding lifeguards through tourism-tax dollars puts the program on more stable footing, comparable to county departments that operate as self-funded enterprise funds, and that the change likely means the county won't need to ask beach cities to help cover lifeguard costs, something commissioners considered in 2024.

Hospitality leaders backed the change. Eric Garvey, president of the Cocoa Beach Area Hotel and Lodging Association, told commissioners his group supports funding the lifeguard program entirely with tourist-tax dollars. "With regard to lifeguards, our association supports 100% funding the lifeguard program with tourist development tax," Garvey said. "We really just ask that we do it the right way."

The change comes after a difficult stretch for Brevard Ocean Rescue. The county's beaches have seen at least five drownings so far this year, following a cluster of eight drownings between November 2025 and March 2026 concentrated almost entirely at unguarded stretches of shoreline, Florida Today reported. Ocean Rescue typically performs around 450 rescues a year, though that number spiked to 150 in just the weeks after Thanksgiving 2025 amid dangerous rip currents. Brevard appears to be the largest Florida county to fully fund its lifeguard program this way; Nassau, Bay and Okaloosa counties have each used tourist-tax dollars to help pay for lifeguards in recent years, but all three have populations well under 250,000.

Florida Amendment 3 will appear on the Nov. 3, 2026 general election ballot. If at least 60% of voters approve it, the amendment would raise the homestead exemption for non-school property taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, and reduce the annual assessment-growth cap for non-homestead property from 10% to 5%, effective Jan. 1, 2027, according to Space Coast Daily. School property taxes would not receive the expanded exemption. 321 Daily reported in August that any homeowner savings would not be automatic; this shift concerns the county-budget side of that same amendment.

County Manager Jim Liesenfelt and his staff have estimated that, if current property-tax rates are levied, Amendment 3 could reduce collections across all county taxing districts by about $67 million in 2027 and about $87 million in 2028. For the county's general fund alone, the estimate is about $41 million in 2027 and $54 million in 2028, Space Coast Daily reported. The outlet cautioned that those are modeled estimates of reduced future revenue under the proposed exemption, not an adopted budget shortfall: it does not mean Brevard County currently has an $87 million deficit, and it is a modeled estimate of how much less ad valorem revenue the county could collect under the proposed exemption structure if other assumptions remain constant.

By moving lifeguard funding onto the tourism tax rather than the property-tax-funded general fund, Florida Today reported, commissioners may be positioning the program to be less exposed if the amendment passes and squeezes the county budget.

That Sept. 15 shift is separate from a second, larger change made a week later. At its Sept. 22 final budget hearing, the county adopted its 2026-27 budget and, as one of several cost-cutting moves, shifted $2 million in Ocean Rescue funding out of the general fund to Tourist Development Tax revenue, according to Talk of Titusville and Space Coast Daily; the same hearing eliminated 44 county positions. That $2 million line item is not the same action as the Sept. 15 $889,949 capital-to-marketing amendment that completed full tourist-tax coverage of the lifeguard program — the two are a week and a decision apart, and describe different money.

For beachgoers, the practical question is who pays for guarded beaches: visitors through the bed tax, or the general fund fed largely by property taxes. Whether Amendment 3 passes is up to voters on Nov. 3.