A Pinellas County tax referendum would raise teacher salaries, but it would also preserve art, music and reading programs and buy supplies.
By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published October 25, 2004
Union leader Jade Moore has no problem acknowledging that teachers stand to gain plenty from a Pinellas County tax referendum to improve schools.
If it's approved by voters Nov. 2, the district's 8,200 teachers would each get up to a $3,200 raise.
But Moore, executive director of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, is quick to point out that teachers would not be the only winners.
"We have to do something to boost the morale of the teachers," he said. "But the overall theme of the referendum is to preserve programs that would have to be cut without this money."
For months, public attention has been focused mostly on the more than $20-million earmarked for salary increases. But another $5.2-million is slated for preserving art, music and reading programs and for buying textbooks and computers.
Supervisors of art, music and technology met in August with Jan Rouse, associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction, to discuss how they would use their share of the money.
Music supervisor Jeanne Reynolds wants the resurrection of strings programs, which were cut in the early '90s in a budget squeeze, along with elementary school band programs.
Sue Froemming, the art supervisor, wants students to take more field trips to local museums.
Reynolds and Froemming and instructional technology supervisor Judy Ambler agree that many schools are in dire need of hardware and software upgrades to keep music composition and digital graphic design programs running.
Ambler, concerned about a federal No Child Left Behind Act demand that all eighth-graders be technically literate by 2006, envisions spending on portable wireless laptops to "bring classrooms into the 21st century."
The additional money might be the only hope for salvaging programs that are over and above basic K-12 curriculum, Moore said.
The majority of School Board members agree. They began discussing plans for a November tax referendum in January, after a teachers union poll showed that 53 percent of voters would support it to at least some degree.
They stepped up efforts in June after superintendent Howard Hinesley asked them to resolve a bargaining impasse on salary and health insurance benefits with the teachers union.
If approved, the measure would increase the district's tax rate by 50 cents per $1,000 of taxable property value. The owner of a $150,000 home with a $25,000 homestead exemption would pay an additional $62.50 a year. The money would generate about $25-million annually for four years.
School Board members agreed in August that 80 percent of the money, or more than $20-million, should raise teacher salaries. The remaining $5.2-million would preserve programs and buy more textbooks and computers.
A review committee of community members would monitor spending of the tax revenue. The district would use as much of the $5.2-million as possible on one-time expenses and would review spending each year.
Critics of the referendum point out that it would last only four years. Voters would have to approve it again in 2008 for the money to remain in play. Many, including School Board member Nancy Bostock, the lone vote against placing the referendum on the ballot, are not convinced that the district's finances are so limited.
Bostock objected to the referendum in June, saying it had not sprung from grass roots concern. She also objected to the ballot language pertaining to program preservation and has accused a citizens group promoting the referendum of using "scare tactics."
"One of the things that has been said and is written in the literature is that fundamental and magnet programs may be cut if we don't get this additional money," Bostock said. "It offends me that they're using this pot of money to sell it to all the special interest groups. They're trying to get as many votes as they can."
School Board Chairwoman Jane Gallucci said the 80-20 split between salaries and programs is a good idea. She denies that statements about preserving programs are a "fear factor."
"From what we were hearing from community members, they wanted to enhance teacher salaries, but they also wanted something tangible that children were going to receive directly," she said. "This is in no way, from my perspective, to make the referendum more attractive."
Beth Rawlins with Citizens for Pinellas Schools, the group promoting the referendum, doesn't see the 20 percent as a help or a hindrance to the measure's passage.
"I see the school system as a package deal," she said. "It's pretty hard for a music teacher to teach music with no instruments. At the same time, if you have a big box of instruments and no teachers, what good is that? These two things are not independent of each other. They are totally intertwined. I don't think one makes sense without the other."
