Hillsborough blocks tax to raise teacher pay from this year’s ballot

Using an obscure law and arguing that prices are too high for area residents, the Hillsborough County Commission voted 4-3 on Wednesday to keep a schools tax off of the November ballot.

In doing so, the Republican-majority commission set the stage for a possible legal battle between the county government and its school system. Superintendent Van Ayres said he has scheduled a special board meeting at 2 p.m. Tuesday to ask for authorization “to pursue all appropriate legal action to ensure the millage referendum is on the ballot of Nov. 5 of this year.”

Speaking at a news conference later in the day, he said, “I think we can all agree that every child deserves the best classroom experience possible.”

School district leaders had hoped to follow the lead of other large and neighboring districts in collecting money through a property surtax that would go toward higher pay for school employees. If approved, the tax of $1 on every $1,000 in assessed value would have brought in an estimated $177 million to ease chronic teacher shortages. The district had hoped to pay yearly bonuses of $6,000 to teachers and administrators, and $3,000 to support staff.

State law does not allow the county board to kill the tax proposal outright.

But according to county commissioner Joshua Wostal, the law does allow the board to rule on the timing. Citing “the excoriating increases in the costs of inflation,” he moved that the referendum date be changed from November 2024 to 2026.

“To the members of our community, I have heard you loud and clear,” Wostal said. “I have read your emails, the painstaking emails of senior citizens on fixed incomes being priced out of your homes, low-income family members being priced out with rent increases or mortgage increases or property increases.”

Commissioner Gwen Myers tried to keep the referendum on schedule for this year. “We all know that our teachers are underpaid,” she said. “We have teachers leaving our county, going next door to other counties to work.”

At last count, Hillsborough had a shortage of 500 classroom teachers with schools scheduled to reopen Aug. 12.

Myers voted against Wostal’s motion, along with commissioners Pat Kemp and Harry Cohen.

But chairperson Ken Hagan voted with Wostal.

“This is an issue that I’m really struggling with,” Hagan said. “I think that most people would agree that there’s never a good time to raise taxes. But we really shouldn’t ignore the fact that there are a lot of folks who are really struggling now. … The devastating impact of inflation has destroyed our buying power.”

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The other votes to postpone the tax came from members Christine Miller and Donna Cameron Cepeda.

The commission vote on the property tax followed an earlier 6-0 decision by the board to move ahead with the county’s Community Investment Tax.

That tax, unlike the school district’s proposal, comes in the form of a sales surtax and funds capital expenses. Schools share in the community investment tax proceeds. But county leaders decided this year to lower the schools’ share from 25% to 5%.

Ayres said he was “absolutely shocked” at the vote. He said he had “multiple conversations with commissioners about the Community Investment Tax,” but “zero conversations about the millage referendum. … I’m sitting here, three hours later, and I’m still in shock that this went down today.”

Teachers union president Rob Kriete said he “didn’t see this coming.” Students, he said, “don’t have two years to wait for that quality teacher. They don’t have two years to wait for a bus driver to get them to school on time.”

Wednesday’s setback makes it unclear how Hillsborough will compete against Pasco, Pinellas, Manatee and other districts when it comes to teacher pay, which now starts in Hillsborough at $48,000 a year. Salaries start at $52,000 in Pinellas, $49,000 in Pasco, $57,572 in Manatee and $47,500 in Polk, according to the most recently available data.

“We are the third-largest district in the state of Florida,” Ayres said. “And of the (largest) five, we are the only one without that referendum, and that puts us at a severe disadvantage.”

Asked if he saw the commissioners’ move as an attack on public education, Ayres said, “without a doubt.”

He also said it amounted to overreach, as voters should have had the right to decide on the tax.

“It’s puzzling to all of us how four county commissioners are taking the decision out of the hands of voters,” he said.

Though unusual, the Hillsborough commission’s action is not without precedent.

The Hernando County Commission refused to place its school district’s sales tax referendum on the 2022 ballot as requested, instead agreeing to set the election for 2024. Hernando commissioners argued that the law said commissioners must place a referendum on the ballot, but it does not specify which ballot. The Hernando school board sued and lost.

Similar disputes took place in Clay and Duval counties prior to the 2020 election.

The law that the Hernando, Clay and Duval commissions invoked referred to sales tax referendums. However, in a 2019 lawsuit, a Clay County judge wrote that the state law clearly grants sole authority to school boards for setting elections such as asking for a property tax increase. That law says “a school district may levy, by local referendum or in a general election, additional millage for school operational purposes.”