Officials eye new revenue Streams
- CANA of Wilton Manors
- Mar 5
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 9
As tax cuts loom, digital billboards, cell towers on table
By Abigail Hasebroock
South Florida Sun Sentinel
With potential property tax cuts on the horizon, Palm Beach County officials are considering creative new sources of revenue that won’t burden taxpayers.
The ideas include digital billboards, school-zone cameras, cellphone towers and naming rights.
If certain proposed property tax amendments are approved by voters in November, Palm Beach County could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax revenue. As these potential cuts loom, the county’s financial management and budget director, Sherry Brown, said she looked to how other cities and counties bring in money.
“We get stuck with what we always know, so we tried to do a little research,” Brown said at a county meeting in February. For example, Brown said the city of Miramar had a digital billboard contract that will bring in $36 million over 20 years.
“They identified like five different sites through their town and a company builds it, they sell the ads and write a check to Miramar,” Brown said.
Naming rights also were discussed, with Vice Mayor Marci Woodward pointing out how universities often employ naming rights, particularly on stadiums.
The county couldn’t very well allow a lobbyist to do naming rights, though, County Commissioner Maria Marino said at the meeting.
“These are great options. Obviously they need to be developed, like naming rights,” she said. “I don’t know what legally we would be able to do in that instance.”
If the county decided to move forward with cellphone towers, officials would work with cellphone companies to “understand where they think their needs might be,” Deputy County Administrator Patrick Rutter said at the meeting.
School-zone cameras were not as popular of an idea, with Commissioner Gregg Weiss saying those would be better considered as a way to address safety issues.
Cities across Florida have recently begun installing automated camera technology to enforce speeding violations in school zones after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law in 2023 allowing the use of such technology. Ultimately, county commissioners gravitated most toward ideas that won’t affect taxpayers.
“We’re trying to offset what our residents have to pay, so things like cellphone towers and digital billboards and naming rights don’t affect our taxpayers,” Marino said.
But county officials still are in the idea-gathering stage.
“I would still like us to look at all the revenue generators,” even if it’s by taxpayers, Commissioner Joel Flores said.
Because state lawmakers may slash property taxes, every alternate revenue idea should stay in consideration for right now, Flores said.
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