When people hear the words "property tax amendment," it can sound like a conversation about numbers, budgets, and government. For those of us working on the ground in Okeechobee, it is much more personal. It's about people.

It's about the parents who come through our doors because there isn't enough food at home. It is about a family looking for clothing for their children. It is about a student who needs someone to talk to at school or needs to come in after school for support or tutoring. It is about someone struggling with their mental health who needs a peer to listen to. It is about families trying to find health care, financial assistance, or other resources and simply don't know where to begin.  These are the services Our Village Okeechobee provides every day.

If Amendment 3 results in reduced funding for nonprofits and government, we will be faced with hard choices which translate into potential layoffs of our current workforce, reduced services to very at risk and vulnerable populations.

Our Village and other organizations like ours may be forced to make decisions that none of us want to make.

This isn't just about a budget!

The Florida Policy Institute projects that Okeechobee County's Children's Services Council could experience reduced revenue if Amendment 3 passes. The Council supports programs addressing children's health and well-being, substance-use prevention, child-abuse prevention, bullying prevention, delinquency prevention, and educational enrichment.

For Our Village, funding from the local children's services network helps support our work with children, families, and the community. If that funding is reduced, we cannot simply continue operating as though nothing has changed. At some point, the numbers become people.

Jobs could be lost

One of the hardest realities we could face is having to reduce our staff. Our employees are not just names on payroll. They are the people answering the phone when you call, meeting with families, organizing programs, working with students, connecting people to resources, and showing up when someone needs help. If funding becomes insufficient to maintain our current level of services, we could be forced to eliminate positions. That means fewer people are available to serve Okeechobee families. It means fewer programs and potentially longer waits for assistance for our most vulnerable citizens.

Our food pantry and clothing store could be at risk.

Our Village Provides direct assistance to families who need it. Our food pantry helps put food on tables; and our clothing store helps families obtain clothing when purchasing it simply isn't financially possible. These services require staff, space, supplies, and funding. If these resources shrink significantly, we could face the possibility of closing our clothing store or food pantry, reducing their availability or limiting the number of families we can serve. For a family already struggling, losing access to those resources could make an already difficult situation even harder. Often, if we do not provide food, families and at-risk seniors go without food.

Our Students Could Feel It Too

Another area that could be affected is mental health peer support in schools. Our peer-support work gives students an opportunity to connect with someone who can listen, encourage them, and help connect them with additional resources when needed. In one of our schools our programming as well as other initiatives has reduced discipline referrals by 65%. It has increased teacher retention, improved attendance, and raised the grades of students. If funding is reduced enough, we may have to consider reducing or even ending some school-based peer-support services. This means a student who currently has access to a trusted, trained support person may no longer have that same opportunity.

Financial Assistance Could End

Our work also includes helping families navigate resources when they are struggling financially or trying to access health care and other assistance. When someone needs help, they often don't know which agency to call, what forms to complete, or where to begin. Even with programs like HOPE Florida, services are woefully inadequate, and clients end up referred back to Our Village. For us it is frustrating, but for a client at their wits end it is critical. Our staff helps families navigate that process. With fewer resources and fewer staff, that assistance could become slower and more limited.

What We Could Lose Is More Than a Program

If Okeechobee residents look beyond the language of Amendment 3 and understand what changes in local funding could mean for municipal partners and nonprofit organizations serving our community. This is not to say that we do not understand the burden of property taxes especially on the elderly with fixed incomes. We do, as property owners ourselves.

The question isn't simply "How does this affect property taxes?"

The question is also:

"What happens to the services our families depend on if the funding supporting them is reduced?"

At Our Village, the answer could involve difficult decisions about employees, our food pantry, our clothing store, school-based mental health peer support, financial assistance, and other services we provide every day. We will continue looking for grants, donations, partnerships, and other ways to serve this community, but there are limits to what a nonprofit can replace when a significant source of funding is reduced.

We don't want to tell a parent that our food pantry is closed.

don't want to tell a family that we no longer have the staff to help them find resources.

We don't want to tell a student that the peer-support program that they relied on is no longer available.

And we don't want to tell an employee who has dedicated themselves to helping this community that their position has been eliminated.

That is the human side of this conversation.

Every voter will ultimately make their own decision about Amendment 3. But before making that decision, I hope people will look beyond the words "property tax" and ask:

What could this mean for the people who depend on the services in our community?

Because at Our Village, those aren't numbers on a spreadsheet.

They're our neighbors.

They're our children.

They're our families.

And they're the people we come to help every day.