A state appeals court Monday said the Hillsborough County Commission did not have authority to decide whether a tax referendum for the county school system would go on this fall’s ballot.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld a circuit judge’s ruling in a case filed against the county commission by the Hillsborough County School Board.
The school board in April approved asking voters in the Nov. 5 election to pass a property-tax measure that would provide additional money for the system. But in July, the county commission said it had authority to decide when the referendum would go on the ballot and indicated it could be 2026, according to Monday’s decision.
A circuit judge ruled that the school board had the authority to decide when the proposal would go before voters and that the commission’s role was ministerial in calling the election. The appeals court agreed, pointing to a state law and saying “construing the statute as granting the county commissioners' discretion to select the date of the election would give the county commissioners the ability to upend the school board's authority to levy additional millage and the school board's control over the substance” of the ballot measure.
“One need only look to the facts of this case for demonstration,” said Monday’s decision shared by Judges Nelly Khouzam, Anthony Black and Suzanne Labrit.
“Here, the school board exercised its tax authority and control over the substance of the measure for the ballot. That measure expressly called for the tax to be imposed from ‘July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2029.’ In refusing to call the election as directed by the school board, the county commissioners have effectively overridden the school board's decision as to the dates the tax should be imposed and its control over the language of the measure.”
