A Community Newspapers opinion column argues that Florida should publish a statewide dashboard showing what nonprofit hospitals, universities and foundations receive in property-tax exemptions and what they deliver in return.
The columnist, Grant Miller, writes that thousands of tax-exempt institutions never receive a property-tax bill, and that the public has little easy access to figures on what those exemptions are worth. He says hospital filings, in particular, are dense documents written for accountants rather than taxpayers.
The proposed dashboard would be searchable by county and by organization. It would list the value of exempt property, estimated unpaid property taxes, annual revenue, operating expenses, executive pay, government funding and measurable community benefits. The column notes that much of this data already exists in separate files kept by the Lown Institute, the Florida Department of Revenue and the IRS, but has never been compiled in one place.
Miller says the column does not seek to remove legitimate exemptions. He proposes starting with the largest nonprofit institutions in Miami-Dade County, then expanding to Broward and Palm Beach counties before going statewide.
