How to sell the Hillsborough school tax

The week of August 19 was a good one for the Hillsborough County School District. That Monday afternoon, a three-judge panel of the 2nd District Judges met. The District Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the Republican-led Hillsborough County Commission’s partisan attempt to block a referendum on teacher pay in the November general election. The following day, three school board members who support the tax easily won re-election in the August 20 primary; a fourth who supports the tax finished first in her highly competitive primary and advanced to the November runoff.

Those legal and political victories within 28 hours gave supporters new hope as they ramped up their tax campaign last week. But don’t misunderstand what the courts did and what voters said. The commission’s school tax lawsuit was overblown from the start, more an act of political sabotage to whip up voter backlash than a legitimate legal claim to stop the referendum. And while voters remained loyal to incumbent school board members in the Aug. 20 primary, the defining issue in this election was not the tax but competence, stability and local school control. Many Hillsborough residents who support public education still struggle with the tax question on the ballot. Of course they want teachers to make more money. But what happens to the money the schools already have?

This push and pull – between wanting to help and not being ripped off – is the central dilemma facing many voters in the November 5 referendum. And that’s why this campaign needs two different messages – one justifying the need for higher wages, and another reassuring voters that their money is being spent responsibly.

Hillsborough is asking county voters to pass an additional property tax to cover school operations. The additional levy would cost $1 per $1,000 of taxable property value; for example, the owner of a $375,000 home with a standard property tax exemption of $25,000 would pay an additional $350 per year. The tax would take effect July 1 and last for four years, the maximum term under Florida law before it would have to go before voters for renewal.

Of the $177 million raised annually, the school district would receive about $150 million, while the remaining $27 million would go to privately run charter schools, which are entitled to a share based on enrollment rates. The district plans to spend more than 90 percent of its share on increasing employee salaries by giving $6,000 grants to teachers and administrators and $3,000 to bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other support staff. About 8 percent of the revenue, or $12 million annually, would go to improving school programs, from expanding field trips to boosting college and career counseling.

Hillsborough insists the additional revenue is needed to keep up with the growing arms race for teachers. Twenty-five of Florida’s 67 counties already levy an additional property tax for school operations (mostly for teacher salaries), affecting the state’s largest and wealthiest metropolitan areas. Hillsborough is bordered on three sides by counties (Pasco, Pinellas and Manatee) that levy additional taxes on salaries. Teachers, bus drivers and other employees in Hillsborough can easily get double-digit raises simply by crossing district lines.

To properly assess Hillsborough’s disadvantage, it is important to look at voting behavior, demographics and the real estate market.

Nineteen school districts in Florida put a total of 20 tax measures on the ballot in 2022, almost all of which aimed to increase teacher pay. Of the 20 measures proposed, 19 passed, with the Hillsborough referendum being the only loser. In most cases, the results were not close; some districts with existing levies even increased them, reflecting the broad support for increasing teacher pay in Florida’s red and blue districts alike.

Hillsborough is an outlier not only because it has no taxes, but because it has a high student population and a low real estate population compared to other major Florida cities. Hillsborough is Florida’s third-largest school district, but smaller districts like Orange County and Palm Beach levy additional taxes to supplement salaries, making salary packages in those districts more attractive. And the competitiveness gap is widening. Other districts have higher property tax revenues and faster-growing real estate markets that solidify their competitive advantage.

Of Florida’s five largest school districts, Hillsborough is the only one that does not collect a teacher tax. It also has the smallest property tax base. Hillsborough’s $173 billion in property tax The value pales in comparison to Miami-Dade ($510 billion) or Broward ($302 billion), and is even lower than the smaller counties of Palm Beach ($332 billion) and Orange ($227 billion). Higher overall property values ​​mean higher property tax revenues for schools, as long as everything else, including the tax rate, remains the same.

Not only do these districts have more money to spend, but their taxable values ​​are rising faster than Hillsborough’s. Even if the referendum passes in November, Hillsborough will still struggle to keep up with the competition, because the $177 million the tax would raise doesn’t even come close to the amount a similar tax raises each year in Miami-Dade ($489 million), Palm Beach ($320 million), Broward ($289 million) or even Orange ($218 million).

Given the stakes and the wide disparities, the surtax may be an easier sell in this election, especially with inflation at half the rate it will be in 2022. The district has reduced payroll to about 23,400 employees in recent years and closed several severely underutilized campuses.

But many voters still raise concerns about Hillsborough’s history of deficit spending. While the payroll is smaller, it’s still larger than the 22,000 employees a consultant recommended for 2020. And although supporters of the tax won school board elections this year, those campaigns were less about the referendum than about cultural issues like book bans and political interference in teaching and administration. In this year’s board elections, numerous candidates on both sides of the referendum called for more transparency for the school district. Although Hillsborough’s 2022 referendum failed by just 592 votes (out of more than 221,500 cast), candidates opposing the tax in this year’s school board primary received tens of thousands of votes, reflecting the appetite for austerity among at least some of the electorate.

It is obviously unrealistic to believe that the district could forego the tax and magically extract $177 million from the existing budget to use for teacher raises. The political dynamics may have changed by 2022, but the campaign message still needs to be two-pronged. What higher wages mean can easily be applied to the classroom environment. The district must prove that its staffing levels and spending are in line with other districts and the times. It must also understand the growing call for more openness. Mail-in ballots for the election will be sent out on October 3. That’s a narrow window of time to win the hearts and minds of voters.