School board chair gives guarantee of how 1-mill tax would be spent

A special election in March will ask voters to approve an additional 1-mill of ad valorem property tax for the School District of Manatee County. Assuming the 1-mill would bring in $33 million, the school board, through a resolution passed, is legally committed to spending this additional revenue as follows:

A. $23.1 million directly into the paychecks of teacher and staff salaries achieved through:

1. extending the school day 30 minutes, additional pay to district teachers/staff: $11,946,913

2. devoting 28.6 percent of the 1-mill proceeds to supplement the pay of teachers, aides, principals, assistant principals and SAMP: $9,469,677

3. an 8 percent pay increase for AFSCME employees: $1,683,410

B. Charter schools: $4,785,000. Charters have 14.5 percent of our students, therefore we have allocated 14.5 percent of the money to go to them. There is also recent case law out of Indian River County that mandates the voter-approved mill revenue be shared. In addition, it’s the right thing to do. All Manatee County public and charter school students should benefit. Charters have independent boards. How they choose to spend those funds is up to them. Hopefully, our local charters, public and for-profit, will also invest in supplementing teacher pay and a longer school day.

C. STEM and Career/Technical Education: $5,115,000. As anyone in the building/construction industry knows, there is a massive shortage of semi-skilled labor in Florida. Boosting career/tech ed will allow Manatee Technical College to produce more graduates in critical shortage areas such as electrical, welding, carpentry and many other programs, where students can go straight from high school to living-wage professional jobs in 15 months.

This is your School Board’s guarantee to the taxpayers, and to our students, families and employees. We can easily be held accountable by the voters, and by the independent citizens committee who will oversee and report on the millage revenues annually.

Please consider a “yes” vote on March 20, 2018.

This story was originally published November 17, 2017 at 11:33 AM with the headline "School board chair gives guarantee of how 1-mill tax would be spent."