Approve the Superintendent’s recommendation not to pursue a referendum seeking voter approval for a half-cent local option school capital outlay sales surtax.

At the School Board meeting of March 14, 2006, the School Board approved a recommendation to authorize the Superintendent to prepare a proposal for a referendum for a half-cent local option school capital outlay sales surtax. The Board item stipulated that any recommendation to proceed would be evaluated in the context of the Board’s capital outlay budget position after the 2006 regular session of the Florida Legislature. The recommendation was also to be considered in the context of revenue anticipated from public school impact fees and the statutory requirements for developers to provide proportionate fair share mitigation of the impacts of development upon school capacity. Finally, any recommendation was also to be considered in the context of optimal use of existing school capacity through school attendance boundary adjustments.

The 2006 General Appropriations Act (GAA) has been adopted and signed by the Governor. The GAA includes an appropriation for school districts to help meet the construction needs related to constitutional class-size requirements. The total amount of the appropriation is $1.1 billion. Approximately $640 million are proceeds created by bonding Florida lottery revenues, and roughly $460 million are derived from unexpected Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) dollars. The specific distribution of the dollars has not been provided. Based on statutory requirements it is estimated that the School District of Hillsborough County will receive approximately $93 million. These funds are distributed according to the terms and conditions of “Classrooms for Kids” (FS1013.735). These funds are intended to pay for the costs of class size reduction and are specifically not intended to pay for the cost of growth in students.

These capital funds will help reduce the class size reduction related deficit in the district’s five-year capital outlay work plan. These funds will not help reduce the growth related deficit in the district five-year capital outlay work plan.

Additional factors contribute to the recommendation to not pursue a half-cent local option school capital outlay sales surtax referendum at this time. First, our School Board Members wish to avoid raising taxes if at all possible. Second, the School Board expects to continue its systematic efforts to save taxpayers’ dollars to reduce school crowding by transferring students to existing spaces in under capacity schools. Third, our Board of County Commissioners has approved the development of a public school impact fee ordinance that reflects recent task force recommendations for larger impact fees. Fourth, the adoption of a public schools facilities element and public school concurrency as part of the Hillsborough County Comprehensive Plan will include stipulations for development interests to provide proportionate fair share mitigation of the impacts of the development on the public school infrastructure. Finally, the impact of legislative actions to support the constitutional requirements of class-size reduction insures that local resources such as local property and sales tax revenues can be devoted to local needs to maintain the over 200 existing schools and help respond to the growth needs of the community.

If after the impacts above have been evaluated, there remains a need to generate new revenue then a prospective referendum to authorize a half-cent local option school capital outlay sales surtax may be revisited.