School Board Amends Property Tax Referendum Language

BRADENTON – At Tuesday's meeting, the Manatee School Board voted to amend and finalize the language to be used in its upcoming referendum, which will ask voters to approve higher school property taxes.

The resolution (pg. 260 in agenda packet) was intended to assure voters more specifically as to what the funds will be used for. Namely, it limits funds from the additional mill the district would collect from property owners to "increase student achievement through more instructional time and after-school tutoring, recruit and retain teachers and staff with competitive salaries, expand Career and Technical Education and STEM programs to prepare students for the workforce, and to support charter schools."

The resolution also pledges that if approved, "a financial oversight committee appointed by the School Board shall issue an annual report to insure proper fiscal stewardship of the funds. In addition, the committee shall identify relevant outcomes and report results to the community."

The referendum will be conducted during a special election on March 20, 2018, that was approved by a 3-2 vote. It will cost taxpayers $300,000. The board was criticized because special elections typically have very low turnout, and the referendum could have been conducted for free just months later during November mid-term elections.

Proponents of the tax argued that the district needed to hold it earlier so that it could access the funds for the 2018/19 school year. When Supervisor of Elections Mike Bennett explained how that could still be done for free by having it asked during the August primary, Superintendent Dianna Greene argued that the district would be recruiting teachers over the summer and did not want uncertainty as to whether salaries would increase when the school year began.

Voters approved a 15-year extension of the optional half-cent sales tax last November, which will generate about $32 million in additional revenues, about the same number as the extra mill, should voters approve it. The district also bonded $150 million in additional taxpayer debt to help pay for new schools after failing to collect developer impact fees since 2009, which also drew public criticism.

After a long impasse on teacher salaries, the board voted in March for a compensation package that both it and the district acknowledged to be inadequate, claiming that the money to properly fund teacher pay simply didn't exist. At Tuesday's meeting, Greene presented a report that showed average teacher pay in Manatee Schools to be $45,778, while that of Sarasota County teachers is $54,524.

The referendum question, as it will appear on the ballot, can be seen below.