Without sales tax, five-year capital plan for Manatee County School District looks bleak

Without the extension of the half-cent sales tax, the five-year capital work plan for the Manatee County School board looks bleak, and even with the extension, the plan isn’t perfect.

As part of the 2016-17 budget process, the Manatee County School Board held a workshop on Tuesday and heard a few different scenarios from chief financial officer Rebecca Roberts about what the district’s capital budget will look like with and without an extension of the half-cent sales tax.

“What you want to do and what you have the money to do isn’t the same,” board member Bob Gause said. “Staff is trying to give us good advice and good direction and we have very limited funds.”

Before the board adopts the final 2016-17 budget on Sept. 6, members have been holding workshops to hear more detailed plans, including the planned next five years of capital spending.

The first of the three scenarios for the next five years Roberts presented included revenue of $426,962,827 and expenditures of $319,144,897. That only includes the capital work that absolutely needs to be done, Roberts told the board, and would include repairing heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems instead of replacing them when they need to be replaced. The first scenario does not include the half-cent sales tax being extended.

The second scenario presented, which also doesn’t include the half-cent sales tax, includes all the work that Roberts said needs to get done in the next five years. The revenue in the second scenario totaled $426,962,827 and included expenditures of $589,486,390, creating a deficit of $162,523,563.

“We don’t have the funding currently to do those things. We’d love to do those things if we receive the appropriate funding,” Roberts said.

The final scenario Roberts presented included the half-cent sales tax being approved by voters and continuing for another 15 years. For the five-year period, with the extension of the half-cent sales tax, the revenue jumps to $548,782,908, and the expenditures remain the same as the second scenario at $589,486,390.

Even extending the half-cent sales tax leaves a $40,703,482 deficit in the five-year plan, which means the board may have to decide on some type of debt to finance the projects the district wants to pursue in the future.

“We will still be slightly short. If we extend this out the 10 years, we would catch up to ourselves,” Roberts said.

Although Roberts said the board may have issue some type of debt, board Vice Chairman Charlie Kennedy said that he hoped the district would be able to return to a “pay-as-you-go” method, although Kennedy said he understood the district would probably need to issue bonds to build a new high school and at least a new elementary school. The new schools are part of a long-term plan to help the district deal with increased growth.

Superintendent Diana Greene couldn’t directly say whether the district would be able to return to that method, because it’s difficult to predict how the county will continue to grow. Greene said district staff members monitor new growth constantly. Greene’s initial plan included bonding about $100 million.

“The goal is to try to from that point on to do ‘pay as you go,’” Greene said. “If communities start popping up, the students have to go somewhere. If our growth is staying where it is today, we believe just that amount of bonding and saving up to pay as you go should get us through. But if it does not, we’ll have to come back.”

At the last meeting, Kennedy had asked the board revisit the schedule for collecting impact fees, initially saying he wanted to change the schedule and begin collecting 100 percent of impact fees immediately, but on Tuesday, the board took no action on the item.

That means the collection schedule will stand, with the district receiving 50 percent of the maximum allowable amount of impact fees the first year, 75 percent in the second year and reaching the 100 percent collection rate in the third year of reimplementation.

This story was originally published August 23, 2016 at 6:52 PM with the headline "Without sales tax, five-year capital plan for Manatee County School District looks bleak."