Sarasota school district touts benefits of extending 1-mill property tax
District representatives tout its benefits, even for residents who have no children in school
As the March 20 vote on the Sarasota County School District’s 1 mill, local-option property tax nears, representatives from the district’s financial advisory committee touted the positive impacts of the tax at a luncheon for the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce on Friday.
In place since 2002, the property tax supplies about $56 million a year for the district and accounts for 13 percent of its operating budget. The money goes toward 30 extra minutes of instructional time each day for students and additional art and music teachers. It also has helped Sarasota County become one of only two districts in the state of Florida to be given an A rating every year since the Florida Department of Education began the grading system in 2004.
“Did you ever think about wanting to move to a community that had mediocre schools?” said Dan DeLeo, an attorney with Shumaker, Loop and Kendrick, and the chairman of Citizens for Better Schools, the political action committee largely in charge of campaigning for the tax vote. “If you care about your property value, whether you have children in the system or not, what’s happening on March 20 is more important than anything else you’re going to vote on or do this year.”
DeLeo also cited the statistic that Sarasota County teachers are the highest paid in the state based on total package, due in part to the tax extension, although that data point is debatable when broken down. It also caused some controversy when district administrators put the phrase on a sign outside the district’s administrative headquarters as more than 400 district employees picketed outside of the building over extended contract negotiations.
One audience member asked how people campaigning for the referendum would respond to claims that teachers already make enough in Sarasota and that they do not deserve more.
“The idea of the referendum and approving the referendum isn’t to give teachers a raise,” DeLeo said. “That’s not the purpose of the referendum — it’s to maintain that extra bit of funding …. All we’re doing is maintaining the funding to produce the high level of quality that the metrics statistics show exist. Teachers are well-paid in the district, and it’s a really terrific thing, because the number one driver of quality in the district is quality of teachers.”
Some of the more than 20 attendees raised the issue of convincing retirees who do not have school-age children in the area to vote for the tax, while others asked why the vote is held during a special election in March rather than a general election, which has been a contested topic in the past.
“Some people whose motives I wonder about have raised the issue of moving the election to November,” DeLeo said. “… If it was put on a November ballot, I would have to raise two times what I raise now to get my message out.”
Last month, School Board member Eric Robinson created his own political action committee, The Children Are Our Future, registered to the address of his Venice accounting firm. He said it was his way of giving back to the campaign, but the decision was not embraced by all of the School Board members and those who work with CBS.
So far, Robinson said the $5,000 he has raised has come out of his own pocket, and he does not intend to raise much more.
“You don’t need that much money,” Robinson said. “Only 30,000 people are going to vote. I think it’s a special election, there won’t be that many people who come out to vote, and I figure you spend a dollar per voter.”
http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20180126/sarasota-school-district-touts-benefits-of-extending-1-mill-property-tax
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