By voting to increase the property tax, Pinellas voters have a chance to give schools a much-needed financial boost
Published October 15, 2004
In a state that suffers from a shamefully meager investment in public education, Pinellas County voters are being given the chance on Nov. 2 to do better for their own children. Toward recruiting the best teachers and maintaining the best classroom programs, property owners would raise their taxes only to the same rate they paid five years ago. The average monthly house payment would go up $4 as a result.
The $26-million that would accrue annually to a district with 113,000 students and a $1.2-billion budget won't revolutionize the schools. But it will seed them. It will allow teachers to get a salary that is closer to the national average. It will allow schools to keep programs, such as sports and arts and music and specialized curriculum magnets, that the state seems to view as frills. More important, perhaps, it will say to schoolchildren, teachers, families and prospective businesses that one west coast peninsular county takes education seriously enough to put its money where its mouth is.
This is not the way Florida's constitutionally prescribed statewide school system is supposed to work, of course. Education, by state constitutional mandate, is a "paramount duty," and all students are to receive a "high quality education." But the political reality is that lawmakers are cheap and entirely too satisfied with education spending that ranks 49th of the 50 states. Even after voters two years ago insisted on smaller class sizes, lawmakers have yet to respond with any real new money.
So that leaves Pinellas with big aspirations and empty pockets. That's why the School Board earlier this year chose a path that is, at best, awkward. State law allows individual districts to ask voters to raise sales taxes for school construction or property taxes for school operations. Pinellas is asking for a property tax increase of 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, and the problem is that the voter approval lasts for only four years. The board would have to ask voters again in four years, which raises the possibility that teacher salaries might be raised and then later cut.
That four-year window is nightmarish in a budgetary sense, but it may be reassuring to voters. The district has pledged to form an oversight committee, made up of community and business leaders, to analyze how the money is spent. If the money is not spent as promised, then voters can put a stop to it in just four years.
The School Board took too long this year in trying to figure out whether to ask voters, but a community group has taken on the challenge. The group, led by former University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus executive Bill Heller, parent representatives and business leaders, has been traveling the county to spread the word. These community leaders also have the full support of Clayton Wilcox, who formally begins his job as school superintendent on the day before the referendum.
"You can't afford to have teachers who are not feeling that they are supported, who don't feel that this community is behind them," Wilcox told an audience in St. Petersburg recently. "We have to say loudly, clearly and proudly that we support them and that locally, . . . we're going to step up for our own."
This is not the best way to pay for education in Florida. The Legislature is supposed to provide the money necessary so that schools don't have to eliminate programs and don't have to choose between paying teachers well or having a manageable number of children in each class. But that's not happening and is not likely to happen soon. So Pinellas now has the chance to do the same thing Sarasota did two years ago. Sarasota voters, by a 2-1 ratio, said they wanted better for their schoolchildren. We hope Pinellas voters will feel the same, and recommend a YES for the school tax.
