Using an obscure law and arguing that prices are too high for area residents, the Hillsborough County Commission voted 4-3 to keep a schools tax off of the November ballot.
School district leaders had hoped to follow the lead of other large and neighboring districts in collecting money through a property surtax that would go toward higher pay for teachers and other school employees.
If approved by voters in the fall, the tax of $1 on every $1,000 in assessed value would have brought in an estimated $177 million to ease chronic teacher shortages. The district had hope to use the proceeds to pay yearly bonuses of $6,000 to teachers and administrators, and $3,000 to support staff.
State law would not allow the county board to kill the tax proposal outright.
But according to commissioner Josh Wostal, the law did allow the board to rule on the timing of the referendum. Citing “the excoriating increases in the costs of inflation,” he moved that the referendum date should be changed from November 2024 to 2026.
“To the members of our community, I have heard you loud and clear,” Wostal said.
“I have read your emails, the painstaking emails of senior citizens on fixed incomes being priced out of your homes, low-income family members being priced out with rent increases or mortgage increases or property increases. This board hears you.”
Commissioner Gwen Myers tried, through a substitute motion, to keep the timing that would schedule referendum for this year. “We all know that our teachers are underpaid,” she said. “We hear it all the time. We have teachers leaving our county, going next door to other counties to work.”
She voted against Wostal’s motion, along with members Pat Kemp and Harry Cohen. Cohen and others who wanted to keep the referendum on this year’s ballot argued that ultimately, the voters would decide.
But chair Ken Haganvoted with Wostal.
“This is an issue that I’m really struggling with,” Hagan said. “I think that most people would agree that there’s never a good time to raise taxes. But we really shouldn’t ignore the fact that there are a lot of folks who are really struggling now. … The devastating impact of inflation has destroyed our buying power.”
The other votes to postpone the tax came from members Christine Miller and Donna Cameron Cepeda.
The vote on the property tax followed an earlier 6-0 decision by the board to move ahead with the county’s Community Investment Tax.
That tax, unlike the school district’s proposal, comes in the form of a sales surtax and funds capital expenses. Schools share in the community investment tax proceeds. But county leaders decided this year to lower the schools’ share from 25 percent to 5 percent.
School district leaders will issue their response later in the day.
This is a developing story and will be updated.