After 11 hours, Miami-Dade mayor’s budget advances. A retreat on gas tax helped

Miami-Dade’s mayor on Thursday abandoned an uphill push for a higher gas tax, retreating on a plan that was expected to raise $5 million for the county’s underfunded transit system.

At the start of an 11-hour budget hearing that adjourned after 4 a.m. Friday, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava dropped the proposed 1-cent increase to the existing 3-cent tax Miami-Dade charges on each gallon of gas.

Insiders privately said they didn’t think Levine Cava had the votes on the 13-member County Commission to pass the higher gas tax as part of a $12.9 billion budget package that includes cuts to charity grants, parks and social-services programs and hikes to transit fares.

“We have continued to listen to our community, and we have heard your concerns about even a minimum increase to the gas tax at a time when so many families are struggling,” Levine Cava said at the start of the 5 p.m. hearing.

Her budget proposal still includes a 50-cent increase to the $2.25 fare charged for bus and Metrorail trips. It would be the first fare increase since 2013. The budget also includes a 25-cent increase in the Special Transportation Services (STS) car rides offered to transit passengers with disabilities, bringing fares to $3.75 per trip.

Multiple people using wheelchairs attended the meeting to argue against the STS fare increase.

“Any vote to raise the fare on STS is a vote to tax the most vulnerable population,” Ernie Diaz told commissioners. “STS is our lifeline.”

Nick Durán, the head of policy for the Transit Alliance advocacy group, urged commissioners not to make bus and train trips more expensive for residents who rely on transit.

“You can’t be for affordability or for the people if you’re for this,” he said of Levine Cava’s proposed fare increase.

Durán was one of 236 people who signed up to speak at the first of two public budget hearings before commissioners take their final votes on the budget on Sept. 18. Property tax rates are flat in the budget, which now includes far fewer cuts than the more austere spending plan Levine Cava first proposed in July.

The mayor’s revised budget proposal — including the last-minute retreat on the gas tax and a few other changes — passed largely intact after Friday’s preliminary votes by the commission in a meeting that adjourned at 4:33 am.

The marathon meeting evoked memories of a past era of contentious county budgets in the wake of the 2008 housing crash, when collapsed real estate values caused a severe revenue crunch for Miami-Dade.

Nearly two decades later, county leaders are facing another revenue crunch after years of higher spending fueled in part by federal COVID dollars and a housing boom. Budget decisions from those years linger: back-to-back cuts in the countywide property-tax rate meant the loss of $48 million in 2026, and raises in union contracts add more than $100 million in costs to next year’s budget. Newly independent offices of Sheriff and Tax Collector also added close to $200 million in new costs for the budget.

Commissioners’ closest vote involved the portion of the budget legislation that enacts a less than 1% increase in household trash fees.

It passed 6-5, with Commissioners Danielle Cohen Higgins, René Garcia, Roberto Gonzalez, Natalie Milian Orbis and Anthony Rodriguez voting no. Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez did not attend the meeting as he recovers from a hospitalization in late July.

Miami-Dade’s first budget hearing stretches 11 hours

Allotted 60 seconds each, members of the public spoke for nearly five hours.

The dozen commissioners at the meeting spoke for six.

Most of the public speakers represented nonprofits trying to reverse proposed cuts in their county grants.

“Tonight, there are 520 women and children sheltered within our walls,” said Constance Collins, head of the Lotus House shelter in Miami, which says it will lose about $700,000 in county funding in Levine Cava’s budget proposal. “Tonight, their safety is at risk.”

Levine Cava is expected to announce more changes to her budget proposal leading up to the second and final budget hearing on Sept. 18. Commissioners will also have a chance to propose changes, which need a majority vote to amend Levine Cava’s spending plan.

“This is our first budget hearing,” Commissioner Raquel Regalado told the chambers around 1 a.m. after outlining some of the savings she was able to identify in the budget proposal to plug scattered revenue holes in recent weeks. “I’m going to keep looking for more.”

Concessions by Levine Cava meant the budget voted on by commissioners looked less dire than the mayor’s initial proposal earlier this summer. In the last six weeks, she’s met funding requests by Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz, walked back multiple planned cuts in the Parks department and in elderly services, and partially restored grant funding for social-services charities and arts groups.

But Levine Cava remains under pressure to come up with more dollars to close other revenue gaps and restore the remaining proposed cuts. That includes the Office of New Americans team that Levine Cava, a former social worker and nonprofit founder, funded after taking office in 2021 to help Miami-Dade residents secure green cards and other immigration help.

“It is personally painful for me to be in a situation where I had to choose between running buses, filling potholes or providing for our nonprofit partners,” Levine Cava told commissioners.

With Friday’s vote, the board endorsed Levine Cava’s flat property-tax rates.

Even with flat rates, rising property values and new construction has property-tax revenue up about 9%. Overall spending is up 1% over the current budget.

Here is a look at some of the other changes speakers pushed for during Thursday’s hearing:

Reverse planned layoffs in county payroll

The most recent Levine Cava proposal eliminates about 378 positions in the county’s nearly 31,000-person workforce. That includes lifeguard Renan Ulloa at the Parks department, which is ending lifeguard service at natural swimming holes known as atolls. “We might end up homeless,” Ulloa said.

Divest in Israel bonds

Multiple people urged commissioners to stop renewing county investments in Israel bonds in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. “The eyes of the world are upon us,” resident Kyle East told the board.

Shift funding for rescue helicopters back to the countywide property tax

Miami-Dade’s fire union wants Levine Cava to undo a funding change she made in 2025 that shifts the $28 million budget for the helicopters from a countywide expense to one covered by the Fire Rescue property tax that’s paid by property owners who rely on the county for fire and ambulance services.

Levine Cava on Thursday announced an attempt at compromise by moving back about half of the chopper budget to the countywide tax, with the rest going back in 2026. Union leaders rejected the would-be deal negotiated by Levine Cava and Regalado and said they are pushing for a full shift back to the countywide tax as the only fair way to fund a countywide service. Commissioners backed the union, voting to instruct Levine Cava to find the remaining $14 million in countywide dollars before the next budget meeting. Levine Cava bristled, saying the only money left to fund the choppers would be the county’s emergency fund — dollars reserved for hurricanes or other calamities. “I think we can all agree there is no emergency here,” she said of the helicopter budget.

Restore full funding for charity grants

The main focus of the budget hearing was arts groups and nonprofits providing after-school camps, senior services, free meals and other help. “I know you don’t want to be the commission to balance the budget on the backs of the people,” said Gepsie Metellus, executive director of the Sant La social-services agency, which she said will lose about $320,000 in the mayor’s budget.

Levine Cava’s revised proposal funds nonprofit grants at about 70% of what was in the 2025 budget, and Commissioner Oliver Gilbert wanted charity leaders to understand there’s a limit to how much Miami-Dade can pay them. “Those of you pushing for 100% funding, you’re in a different universe,” he said. “What’s possible right now is doing the best we can.”

Reduce the county’s $21 million cash subsidy for the FIFA World Cup games in 2026

Miami-Dade bid to host the games, but the county is facing backlash for the soccer outlay in the face of service cuts. Commissioner Kionne McGhee said he doesn’t want to have to decide between sheltering children and funding World Cup. “Before I make that decision, I will gut FIFA,” he said. Instead of raising $5 million from a higher gas tax, Levine Cava said she would divert 2026 dollars initially earmarked for county reserves to the transit budget instead. Transit lost $27 million from state changes to the sales tax that funds the $400 million county transit budget, and Levine Cava said the agency faced a roughly $50 million deficit heading into the budget process.

Levine Cava closed the gap in her budget by raiding other reserves for transit expansion and fare increases and scattered cuts. That included saving $11 million by ending the MetroConnect shuttles that provide short-hop rides for free, but she said she’d be proposing a way to save that service before the final vote.

Levine Cava called many of the budget fixes “unsustainable” because many of them involve surplus dollars that won’t be there for the 2027 budget. Her administration would scrap plans to set aside $14 million for hurricane expenses not covered by FEMA, for instance, and use that money to cover the $14 million helicopter budget that would have been paid by the Fire Rescue tax.

While Levine Cava said her administration closed a $402 million gap at the start of the budget process, forecasts show future shortfalls peaking at $250 million in 2030.

“If you think this evening is difficult, it is only going to get worse by our own projections,” Commissioner Cohen Higgins said before the meeting entered its second day.

This story was originally published September 5, 2025 at 11:17 AM.