School board to assess budget

Most of the proposed operating budget will go toward supporting three new schools.

By KENT FISCHER

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 1, 2000

The Pasco County School Board is expected to approve tonight a tentative budget for the coming school year and set the tax rate to pay for it.

The proposed $502-million budget is down about $23-million from last year, due mainly to the district's loss of bond revenue, which it spent to build new schools.

Almost half of the total budget -- about $234-million -- is tied up in non-classroom expenses, such as construction, building maintenance, repairing and running school buses, and operating school cafeterias.

That leaves the roughly $269-million "operating budget" for classroom instruction, administration and school-related materials. While the proposed overall budget is down from last year, the proposed operating budget is up about $6.3-million. Most of that increase will go to pay for the new teachers and materials necessary to open three new schools and for raises guaranteed in the district's new teacher contract.

All together, 80 percent of all the money the school district spends goes toward salaries and benefits for its 6,300 employees.

At the budget hearing today, the board is expected to set its millage rate at .76 mills, the same level as last year. A mill is $1 in tax per $1,000 of assessed property value. Coupled with the state-set millage rate of 5.884 and .697 mills for debt and school construction, the total millage rate for the proposed budget is 9.341 mills, down from 9.709 mills last year.

Chuck Rushe, the district's chief financial officer, said the district-set millage rate should raise about $85.4-million in local property taxes, about $4.5-million more than the district raised last year. The increase is due to Pasco's surging property tax rolls, which grew about $387-million this past year.

Most Pasco County property owners shouldn't see an increase in their school taxes next year, because the state reduced by .25 mills the millage rate that districts are required to levy. New home owners, or those who had their property reassesed in the past year, likely will see a bigger school tax bill, Rushe said.

Today's budget hearing will be held at the board's meeting room at 7227 Land O'Lakes Blvd. The hearing is scheduled to start at 6 p.m.

- Staff writer Kent Fischer covers education in Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6241 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6241. His e-mail address is kfischer@sptimes.com.

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