Lots of media attention around the upcoming midterm elections is understandably focused on which party will win control of Congress, as well as the many state legislative chambers and governorships that are up for grabs. However, there are also over 150 state ballot measures going before voters next month, some of which will be tremendously consequential in shaping state economies for years to come. Two such proposals warrant greater attention: Amendment 87 in Colorado and Amendment 3 in Florida. Both would be transformative for their respective states—the former in positive ways, the latter in catastrophic ones.

Colorado Amendment 87 would make the state tax system fairer while boosting revenues for essential public services

On November 3rd, Colorado voters will vote on Amendment 87, a measure that would replace the state’s constitutionally mandated flat tax—which requires a teacher’s aide making $40,000 a year to pay the same tax rate as a billionaire tech CEO—with a progressive, graduated income tax. The new tax system would maintain current tax rates on households and businesses earning $100,000–$500,000 a year, lower taxes for those making less than $100,000 a year, and raise taxes modestly on households and businesses making more than $500,000 a year. All told, these changes would mean a modest tax increase on the richest 3% of Colorado taxpayers, with everyone else in the state paying the same or less than before.

In a state and country shaped by tremendous income inequality, even modest changes to tax rates on the highest earners—like those being considered in Colorado—can yield substantial new revenues. Analysts estimate Amendment 87 would generate over $2 billion in new funds to support public education, health, and child care in the state. (The state’s general fund gross revenues for FY25–26 were projected to be about $17 billion, so a $2 billion increase is sizable.)

In many ways, the Colorado measure is not very different from other high-earner taxes passed in Maine, Washington, Rhode Island, and Hawaii this past year. Massachusetts’ “fair share” tax, adopted by voters in 2022, has been a huge success, exceeding revenue projections and funding significant investments in public transit, free school meals, free community college, and early childhood education.

Amendment 87 is notable because it would begin to fix the state’s uniquely broken funding system. In 1992, Colorado voters adopted a “Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights” (TABOR) amendment that caps state revenue even when the state economy grows. Colorado is the only state that has such a measure, and for over 30 years, it has kept the state’s public services from keeping up with a growing and aging population. Low teacher salaries have driven high teacher turnover in Colorado public schools, many of which have increasingly had to shift to four-day school weeks. The state workforce has similarly struggled with turnover, and federal funding cuts to Medicaid, among other programs, exacerbate existing strains on programs serving one of the fastest aging populations in the country.

Unsurprisingly, opponents are making typical arguments that the measure would cause high earners and small businesses to flee the state en masse—arguments that empirical research has thoroughly debunked. Colorado’s Governor Jared Polis, himself a wealthy tech entrepreneur, has claimed the measure would hurt small businesses, though independent analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that the corporate tax changes would fall overwhelmingly on large multinational corporations with shareholders located across the globe. ITEP estimates that 90% of the corporate impact would fall on people who aren’t Coloradans.

Amendment 87 would go a long way toward fixing a nearly 35-year-old structural funding problem that has hamstrung public services in Colorado while making the state tax system fairer. If voters there see through the fearmongering, it could help motivate lawmakers and advocates in other states to pursue similar tax changes critical to bolstering vital public services, combating inequality, and improving outcomes for everyday working families.

Florida Amendment 3 would lead to substantial job losses and public service cuts

Florida Amendment 3, a constitutional amendment placed on the ballot by the state legislature at the request of Governor Ron DeSantis, would fundamentally undermine Florida local governments’ ability to raise revenue and fund public services. The measure would dramatically increase the state nonschool property tax exemption on homesteads from the current $25,000 to $250,000 in 2028, indexing it to inflation thereafter; lower the 10% assessment growth cap on all other properties to 5%; and require the legislature to establish procedures allowing local governments to raise homestead exemptions even further—opening the door for potential full elimination of nonschool property taxes. The state Office of Economic and Demographic Research estimates that the amendment would cut local tax revenue by nearly $14 billion in the first two years alone and structurally reduce local tax revenues by nearly $12 billion annually thereafter.

Funding losses of this magnitude would be devastating for public services in every community across the state. Keep in mind that when analysts describe funding cuts and reductions in “public services,” what they’re often really describing is people—who work on behalf of their neighbors and communities—losing their jobs.

To make Amendment 3’s potential damage concrete, we can compare the estimated permanent funding losses with current local government compensation and employment data in the state to get a rough sense of the potential shock to local government employment.

The map above shows the projected permanent revenue losses that would result from Amendment 3 for every Florida county. It also shows what these losses represent as a share of total compensation of local government employees in each county. (Table 1 below contains the same data for all counties and the state overall.) The data show that the projected funding losses are equal to roughly 17% of total local government compensation statewide, rising as high as 39% of compensation in Flagler County.

The map and table also report local government employment as of 2025, which statewide totaled almost 720,000 workers. If local governments were forced to cut staffing in direct proportion to their funding losses, it would mean job losses for almost 125,000 local public-sector workers across the state. In Flagler County, a 39% loss in public-sector employment translates to over 1,500 people losing their jobs. Notably, Flagler county—a relatively small Atlantic-Ocean-adjacent county north of Daytona Beach—had fewer than 29,000 jobs total in 2025, meaning that a loss of 1,500 jobs would be over 5% of total employment (public and private) in the county.

Of course, not every county and municipality will absorb these funding losses entirely through staffing cuts; most will likely adopt a mix of staffing cuts, reductions in services, fewer supply purchases, canceled contracts with private vendors, and possibly sales of public assets. Each of these would have ripple effects on local households and businesses. If a county, for instance, is forced to stop contracting with a local lawn care or building services company, those formerly contracted local businesses could also have to cut staff.

Local governments will also likely try to increase revenues from other sources, such as service fees and tax increases on entities not eligible for the amendment’s exemptions. For instance, Amendment 3 does not provide an expanded tax exemption for non-homestead properties—meaning that commercial property owners will likely see their property taxes rise, which they could very likely pass on to renters and tenant businesses.

This would shift more of the local tax bill away from homeowners and onto renters, who are typically less wealthy. With no income tax and a large portion of state and local revenues generated by sales and excise taxes, Florida already has the most regressive tax system in the country. The lowest-income taxpayers in the state pay effective tax rates nearly five times higher than the top 1% of taxpayers.

If voters adopt Amendment 3 next month, the consequences for communities across the state will be dire. Researchers at the Florida Policy Institute have described in detail how Amendment 3 would gut resources for public hospitals, child and family services, and emergency and disaster response services, among other things. In the short run, especially as the labor market is looking increasingly unsteady, enacting massive funding cuts to local governments is incredibly foolish just for the direct impacts it will have on jobs and spending in local economies. In the long run, the harm to the welfare of Florida residents from a severely diminished public sector could be devastating.

Together, these measures show how much is at stake on state ballots this November. Colorado could begin to fix a decades-old structural funding problem, while Florida may create a new one of its own—one that would strip billions from local governments and the services they provide.