If you're a voter in Hillsborough County, you'll have two tax referendums on your general election ballot.
But the fact that they both concern funding for public schools — albeit, in different ways — may complicate things.
Hillsborough’s School Board is presenting voters with a millage tax referendum. You would have to pay an additional $1 per $1000 in taxable property value, and the collected funds will directly support higher salaries for teachers and staff.
Rob Kriete is president of the county’s classroom teacher’s association. With approximately 450 teaching vacancies, he said that Hillsborough is losing educators to surrounding districts who already have a similar tax in place.
“We have districts that are poaching our teachers and our support professionals and our bus drivers and our lunchroom workers and our custodians, because frankly, they could pay a lot more,” Kriete said.
He told WUSF that Florida is the state with the most open positions in education, and Hillsborough County holds that title among state counties.
Currently, 25 of Florida’s 67 counties have an additional property tax to supplement employee salaries, including Pasco. Kriete said the situation is “urgent and desperate,” and that the extra funding is essential to giving students a quality education.
“I think that in a perfect world you probably wouldn’t have both of them on the ballot at the same time, but they were put on the ballot separately, and they really each deserve consideration on their own merits.”Hillsborough County Commissioner Harry Cohen
If passed, the millage tax would be effective for four years. Property owners can see how much more they’d have to pay using this calculator.
Voters will also decide the fate of Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners’ tax referendum, which is up for a 15-year-long renewal.
The Community Investment Tax (CIT) has funded a variety of projects since 1996, and is most well known for giving rise to Raymond James Stadium.
Now, public schools would receive only 5% of CIT revenue. It used to be 25%.
But this money can’t be used to pay salaries.
Instead, CIT funding is earmarked for capital expenses.
Hillsborough Commissioner Harry Cohen said that means things like building new schools, improving existing infrastructure, and similar one-time costs.
Because both referendums address public schools, voters may feel like they have to choose between the two taxes.
And Cohen said he knows it’s never a good time to ask people for more money.
“I think that in a perfect world, you probably wouldn’t have both of them on the ballot at the same time, but they were put on the ballot separately, and they really each deserve consideration on their own merits,” he said.
Notably, Superintendent Van Ayres did not ask the Board of Commissioners for the original 25% of CIT revenue this year.
Cohen said the amount he requested came to about 6.5%. With the final decision being 5%, the commissioner hopes they’ll “get the schools far enough along the way that they’ll be able to find the rest of the money they need on their own.”
“I will be voting for the millage referendum because I believe that it’s the only way that we can prevent an exodus of teachers into the counties around us,” Cohen said. “I will also be voting for the CIT referendum because that half-cent has been invaluable in making critical infrastructure investments.”
You can see how the new CIT revenue would be used on this website.
