School board discusses land swap for new schools in East Manatee

The eastern portion of Manatee County, especially Lakewood Ranch, had a remarkable growth spurt in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Apparently, another major residential housing boom is on the way.

That became clear at a school board workshop Tuesday when School District of Manatee County staff recommended to the board that the district take advantage of a parcel swap being offered by Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, Lakewood Ranch’s developer, that would give the district the chance to build two new schools in a hot new growth area where 15,000 homes are projected.

The area SMR is offering the district is roughly 139 acres east of Lorraine Road and about a half mile north of State Road 70.

The land would be large enough for another new high school and a kindergarten through eighth grade school, Michael Pendley of the district’s department of construction told the board.

In exchange for this parcel, the school district would just have to swap back to SMR a 138-acre parcel the school district bought from SMR in 2007 north of State Road 64 and west of Dam Road which was projected seven years ago to become a high school and middle school.

SMR now believes this northern parcel will not produce the same residential home growth as the more southern parcel, Pendley said.

“If we swap, our schools can be located closer to the planned residential development,” Pendley added.

SMR and Manatee County have refined development plans since the land was acquired in 2007, and it is much clearer that the southern site near S.R. 70 will have more growth, Pendley said.

In fact, SMR has a comprehensive plan approval for 10,972 homes south of State Road 64 but no homes approved on SMR property north of S.R. 64, Pendley told the board.

“Overall, there’s 15,000 units in this area that have been approved,” Pendley said.

No vote was taken at the workshop on the swap, which involves no cash, but school board member David Miner said the swap seems like a good deal for the district and does seem to foreshadow a major growth spurt coming to the county.

“I could see six new schools in the next 10 years,” Miner said.

Both the workshop and regular board meetings were held at Manatee Technical College on Tuesday due to renovations at the board’s chambers on Manatee Avenue West.

Citizens Financial Advisory Committee

By a 4-1 vote, with Miner casting the only dissent, the board voted during the main board meeting to establish a Citizens Financial Advisory Committee whose mission will be to provide financial oversight to the board on the financial operations of the school district.

“If we do not establish this tonight we will do substantial damage to the will of the voters,” said board chairman Scott Hopes, who was referring to the special March 20 election where voters will decide if the school district will get an estimated $33 million over four years from a one-mill property tax hike.

Auditor gives district nearly perfect grade

The board voted unanimously to approve the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report done by auditors from the Tampa firm of Moore Stephens and Lovelace.

“There was an overall improvement from our last audit that we did in 2015,” auditor Jeff Wolf announced at the board meeting. “We still have some issues that the district is working through, but they made several improvements and we expect next year to have a totally clean audit.”

There were a handful of small issues, Wolf said.

“The one issue was the bank reconciliations not being done timely due to a system issues in December that has been resolved,” Wolf said. “Issues were found by our information technology auditors and the district is in the process now of improving those. The issues were timing issues involving a payroll account. It was a financial reporting issue, nothing significant. That was also addressed as well.”

Although the auditor praised the district for getting its financial affairs on the right track, resident Linda Schaich, making a public comment, had a different view.

“It’s interesting that the auditors say the picture is positive despite payroll glitches and software that has doubled in cost,” Schaich said.

Substitute teacher pay discussed

Sarah Brown, chief of human resources for the district, and Wendy Mungillo, director of personnel, presented dramatic statistics regarding substitute teachers in the district.

Manatee pays subs $69 for a day’s work, which is more than Hillsborough County ($67.36) and Pinellas ($65) but much less than Sarasota ($98.78).

That’s a problem because Sarasota draws from the same geographic pool as Manatee, Brown told board members.

Staff is recommending substitute pay be increased to from $89 to $100 per day. The proposed increase would add $330,000 to the total cost of the sub program, Brown said.

No decision was made Tuesday.

Manatee has 540 active substitute teachers in its system, a 10 percent decrease from 2015, Brown said.

The average cost over the past three years for substitute teachers is roughly $3 million, Brown said.

More dramatic was Brown’s statistics on substitutes needed daily, which is 280.

The biggest need for subs is on Mondays and Fridays, Brown added.

Brown told board members that 80 percent of the time Manatee is able to fill a teacher vacancy with a substitute.

In 2014, Manatee’s “fill rate” was 91 percent.

When there is not a sub available, other teachers must fill in or students must be split up between other classrooms, Mungillo said.

“Sometimes we must get creative,” Mungillo added.

This story was originally published January 23, 2018 at 9:47 PM with the headline "School board discusses land swap for new schools in East Manatee."