The Broward County School Board and a local voter have filed a lawsuit against County Tax Collector Abbey Ajayi to try to recover $5.5 million that the school district alleges was improperly withheld from a voter-approved referendum.
The suit, filed in Broward Circuit Court, also seeks a judgment requiring that the tax collector’s office can withhold collections in the future “only after proper disclosure to voters.”
The school district learned in January that the tax collector’s office, which started operations in January 2025, had withheld the $5.5 million, or 2% of the $275 million generated annually from a voter-approved referendum.
The referendum was passed in 2022 to enhance employee salaries, safety and security and mental health. The district is asking voters to renew the referendum on Nov. 3.
Joining the district as a plaintiff is James L. Sparks, a Broward resident, homeowner and voter, who lives in West Park.
The lawsuit, filed on Oct. 8, states that Sparks supported the referendum in 2022, which levied a property tax of one mil, which is equal to $100 per $100,000 in assessed property.
Sparks “relied upon the representations that every penny of the additional millage would be used for Broward County Schools …,” the lawsuit states. “Taxpayer standing is well-established under Florida law, which recognizes the right of individual voters/taxpayers to seek injunctive relief to prevent the improper diversion of public funds.”
District officials said that prior to the creation of the tax collector’s office, the county’s financial office collected money from the 2022 referendum as well as all referendums prior to that, and never withheld a commission.
Board members said they were unaware of this expense when they approved the district’s annual budget last year, and the district has already been dealing with more than $90 million in cuts due to a huge enrollment decline.
The district claims that Ajayi used the $5.5 million “to inflate her own budget by more than one-third,” according to the lawsuit.
“The voters of Broward County approved the millage as a trust for the exclusive benefit of education, with the reasonable expectation and understanding that the full proceeds of their approved tax levy would fund classrooms, operations, teacher compensation, and educational programs — not the Tax Collector’s ever-increasing overhead,” the lawsuit states.
The School Board agreed during a May 19 meeting to authorize district lawyers to pursue legal options, including litigation, to try to recoup the money.
On May 26, the school district made a public records request for financial information relevant to the use of the funds but had not received the documents, the lawsuit said. The district still hasn’t received the documents as of Thursday, a district spokesman told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“Broward County voters approved these funds to support our teachers, students, and schools, not to subsidize the Tax Collector’s Office,” School Board member Adam Cervera told the Sun Sentinel. “At a time when our district faces significant financial challenges, we cannot afford to lose a single dollar intended for public education. These dollars belong in the pockets of our hardworking teachers, not in the coffers of the Tax Collector’s Office. I will continue fighting to ensure every dollar is recovered and those responsible are held accountable.”
An email from the tax collector’s communications office said, “Due to pending litigation, we are unable to comment on the matter at this time. We will address the issues through the appropriate legal process.”
But the office did provide extensive comments after the School Board signaled its intent to sue in May, issuing a three-page news release titled, “Broward County Tax Collector Abbey Ajayi Calls Out the Broward School Board for Misleading the Public.”
The release said that Ajayi’s office had already disbursed $3.2 million “in unplanned revenue interest to the School Board, offsetting the $5.5 million in dispute.”
In a letter to the tax collector’s office included in the lawsuit, a school district lawyer said the $3.2 million “are investment earnings on funds held by the Tax Collector’s office that rightfully belong to the District and should not be conflated with the $5.5 million retained in commission.”
The tax collector’s news release said the $5.5 million in fees are required by statute, and the district shouldn’t use taxpayer resources to threaten legal action against the tax collector’s office.
“It is disingenuous for the Broward County School Board to attribute its financial management issues to the Tax Collector’s Office,” Ajayi said in the release. “The Office is not responsible for their budget shortfall, nor for their failure to follow their own published guidelines.”
The release said the Florida Department of Revenue had reviewed the Broward County Tax Collector’s governing statutes at their request and agreed it’s the school district’s responsibility.
This is the second recent lawsuit against the tax collector’s office.
The Broward County Commission sued Ajayi on Sept. 30 over more than $8 million it says it is owed, WLRN reported.
The county claimed that when the tax collector’s department became an independent agency in 2024, it allowed Ajayi to use its personnel and financial systems to run her operations, which cost the county about $15.1 million. But the county said it was only paid back about $7 million, despite Ajayi’s department generating about $17 million in revenues. The rest of the money was distributed to other local government agencies, WLRN reported.