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Schools looking to extend 4-year tax

The district wants a 10-year commitment for the property tax tied to teacher pay.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published December 13, 2006

LARGO - Despite a climate that has taxpayers in revolt, Pinellas school officials want to secure a much longer commitment to a special property tax that bolsters teacher salaries.

District officials on Tuesday asked local legislators to support a change in state law that would allow school systems to ask voters for a renewal of up to 10 years instead of the current four years.

Pinellas voters approved the special tax in a November 2004 referendum, allowing the district to give its 8,000 teachers an average pay increase of about 15 percent over the past two years. The measure also provides millions to build new computer labs, renew art and music programs and bolster the district's reading initiatives.

The district sought the extra tax, saying the state's regular allotments gave Pinellas only enough money to run a pedestrian school system with few extras.

The special tax expires in 2008, but School Board members have indicated they will ask voters to renew it. Since 2004, the district has come to rely on the extra money, which has made Pinellas teachers the best paid in the Tampa Bay area.

If voters reject the tax, district officials predict a crisis with only two ways out: slashing teacher salaries to where they were before the tax or a massive budget cut.

This year will mark the third time Pinellas has carried the 10-year request to Tallahassee. But this year is different. It comes as property owners have been blasted by double-digit increases in insurance premiums and rising tax assessments.

When Pinellas voters approved the special tax in 2004, the taxable value of all county property stood at about $50-billion. This year, it tops $75-billion.

"This is a major issue that I am getting calls and letters on almost every day, so there's something that we have to do about it," said state Rep. Tom Anderson, R-Dunedin, who heads the Pinellas Legislative Delegation.

District officials made their request Tuesday at a joint meeting of the School Board, the County Commission and the legislative delegation. Officials said the three groups have never convened together.

They organized the meeting in response to concerns over taxes and the affordability of basic housing in Pinellas.

County Administrator Steve Spratt noted that the part of the county budget financed by property taxes has spiked 60 percent, from $555-million in 2003 to more than $882-million this year. The county's reserves, he said, have swelled from $6.4-million to nearly $30-million over the same period. At the same time, Spratt acknowledged that population growth in Pinellas has been flat.

But he argued that the cost of basic expenses as well as demands for service keep increasing, including inmates at the county jail, indigent care and the public's high expectations of county parks.

Though financial experts recommend that reserves should be between 5 percent and 15 percent, Pinellas is keeping its reserves at between 13 percent and 16 percent because of the county's vulnerability to hurricanes, Spratt said.

"We are at the high end of that range," he said, "but we are also a peninsula on a peninsula in a high risk state."

Anderson voiced a different view, citing the staggering increases in taxable values: "Something has sort of gotten out of control," he said. "For me, it starts to become a spending problem just as much as a taxing problem."

The special school tax is assessed in addition to regular property taxes for education. It is 50 cents for every $1,000 of assessed taxable value.

For a home valued at $200,000 with a $25,000 homestead exemption, regular school taxes this year come to $1,349. The special tax adds $87.50 to the bill.

Earlier this year, despite strong support in the Florida Senate, a bill to allow an extension of the tax for up to 10 years never got off the ground in the House.

Anderson, who will take it to the House in the upcoming session, predicted it stands a better chance this time.

[Last modified December 13, 2006, 05:45:55]