While the state's voters scratch their heads over the proposed property tax amendment now winging its way onto a Jan. 29 ballot, a powerful group called the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission is about to begin feverish consideration of even broader budget and tax proposals, one or more of which are likely to end up on November 2008 ballots.

The 25-member state-appointed group, which can put an amendment directly onto the November ballot by a two-thirds vote, meets today, its first meeting since the Legislature passed its proposal.

Does the Legislature's amendment eliminate the need for the commission to look at tax reform? 'Absolutely not,' said John McKay, a Bradenton resident and a commission member. 'I've been saying for Lord-how-many-years, the structure is just held together with bailing wire and chewing gum,' said McKay, a former president of the Florida Senate. 'We cannot continue to keep depending on ad valorem taxes to fund the state because they are so unstable, and it is having a huge detrimental influence on businesses and on second-home property sales.' He cites a document that is likely to become a centerpiece of the commission's attempts at budget and tax restructuring: 'State of Florida Long-Range Financial Outlook Fiscal Year 2008-09 through 2010-11,' which counts the Senate, the House and the Legislative Office of Economic and Demographic Research as co-authors.

The upshot of the 95-page study is that the state has to cut $2.3 billion in spending before it even starts the next fiscal year, not counting the further negative impact of the proposed amendment. This is because government has relied too heavily on real estate-related taxes and fees. To some extent these are nonrecurring sources of revenue, being used to fund recurring expenses. 'In good times that is OK, because people buy a lot of houses, but in bad times it is not good, which is what we are in now,' said McKay. 'So you've got to find a second source of revenue. 'That only leads you to one thing, which is sales tax.'

Meanwhile, another commission member, Lee County Tax Appraiser Kenneth Wilkinson, is also working on a fresh property tax initiative of his own, commission spokeswoman Kathy Torian confirmed. Wilkinson is generally recognized as the father of the Save Our Homes amendment, and has been engaged in a lengthy quest to make accrued Save Our Homes benefits portable as homeowners downsize or upgrade from one Florida residence to another. The Legislature's amendment seeks to do that, but in a limited fashion. Someone who moves to a more expensive house would be able to carry forward up to $500,000 in Save Our Homes accrued benefits, which would go to reduce the taxable value on the new home. If the person downsizes, the exemption would be proportional to the savings on the old house.

These proposals and others by commission members are already being vetted by lawyers and prepared for public display, Torian said. 'One could be completed as early as tomorrow,' Torian said Wednesday. Talk about open access...

Quite of a bit of the process will be accessible to the public. Committee meetings considering the ideas will typically take place in airport meeting rooms. Torian said that at least a week before a committee takes up a given proposal or set of proposals, she will post the meeting site. There probably will be opportunities for public comment at most of the committee meetings, she said, but it is not guaranteed. Staff members will post detailed minutes of each committee meeting on the Web site.

When the full commission starts debating proposals that have emerged from committee -- mostly in the first quarter of 2008 -- staff members will arrange for full transcripts on the Web.

Commission chairman Allan Bense has set a soft deadline of Nov. 30 for members to submit their proposals either for a statute or for a constitutional amendment. The first of these proposals could show up as early as today on Bense's desk, said deputy staff director Torian. 'There could be 20 or 30 different proposal ideas out there right now,' Torian said. 'Everything will begin hot and heavy now.'

Within a few days, she expects to add a button marked 'Member's Proposals' to the group's Web page, www.floridatbrc.org. Unlike a citizens' initiative, which would require 611,000 signatures by the beginning of February to get onto the November ballot as a proposed amendment, the commission simply needs to agree on a proposed amendment by a two-thirds vote, which means 17 out of 25 members. A simple majority, 13 out of the 25, can send a proposed bill to the Legislature for consideration starting in March.

The commission met for the first time in 1990. An amendment adopted by voters in 1998 changed the panel's next appointment to 2007-08 and established that it will meet every 20 years after this.

One commission member whose constituency is really hurting these days is Nancy Riley, president of the Florida Association of Realtors. She would not talk about specific proposals, but she indicated that what the Legislature has wrought for the Jan. 29 ballot is more of a start to tax reform than a finish. 'It certainly wasn't as much as I hoped for, but at least it was something,' said Riley. 'It will be a base, and from there we are hoping to expand into other areas.'

The commission is supposed to consider a broad range of budgetary and tax-related topics such the need for more roads, the state's education system, and so on. But tax reform has so far dominated the public hearings. 'They didn't talk about the structure of government, or did we need better roads,' said Bill Levison, a snowbird who flew down from his home in Lexington, Mass., to attend the Fort Lauderdale hearing and speak his piece. 'They talked about whether government is getting too much revenue or not enough, whether we should have caps or not on revenues or spending, whether we should keep Save Our Homes or make it portable,' he said. Levison founded a tax-cutting group called Broward Activists for Tax Equity that now has 80 members. Its plan, which he provided to the commission in a three-minute speech, focuses on limiting government revenues. 'Once you limit revenues, you've already prevented runaway taxation, so Save Our Homes wouldn't be necessary, so you could phase it out,' Levison said. 'We'd try to avoid some sticker shock by phasing it out gradually.'