After years of wrangling over who should pay for fire services, the long-running dispute between the Leon County School Board and the City of Tallahassee appears to be smoldering out — ending a standoff that left more than $3 million in unpaid fees on the books.
Four years ago, the school board declared it no longer had to pay the fire services fee and racked up a multi-million dollar tab, but recent utility bills from August and September show the city is erasing the debt and balancing its books.
LCS spokesperson Chris Petley said over the last four years, the school board would receive bills and pay everything but the fire services and stormwater fees. The city never took the fees off the bill, and the debt just kept piling up even though the city knew LCS had no intention of ever paying.
Now as the city works to make the fee’s application more consistent and transparent, bookkeepers are zeroing out the unpaid balance and no longer charging the district for the fee.
City Manager Reese Goad calls it “real finality” in the dispute with the district, and said the corrective accounting measures were the last step.
“There was a lot of accounting cleanup that has to happen with utility accounts that followed after that with the goal to be completed before the end of the fiscal year,” Goad told the Democrat. “And I believe that has been done.”
City backs down after seeking millions from school board
The discord between LCS and the city heated up this year when the city sought millions from the school board, but it appears this battle also has fizzled.
LCS Superintendent Rocky Hanna previously told the Tallahassee Democrat that the school district hired outside legal expertise in 2021 to determine whether they had to pay for firefighter services.
Leon County Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna attends the Tallahassee NAACP branch’s annual commemorative Dreamers and Doers Breakfast, Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. The breakfast honors the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. and the students who carry on his legacy.
Based on legal cases in which other school boards around the state won and stopped paying fees, LCS’s lawyers determined they too didn’t have to pay the fee.
And until February, the city never batted an eye at the stack of unpaid invoices.
City officials were reviewing the 2025 budget and discovered a lack of money in the fire fund. Roughly $30 million-$35 million in additional revenue was needed to fully fund fire operations, as previously reported.
In an effort to start filling the gaping budget hole, the city moved to enforce its contract with LCS, attempting to collect $2.3 million in reimbursement and cancellation fees from the school board to account for a breach in the parties’ fire service agreement.
City Manager Reese Goad listens during a City Commission meeting on Wednesday, March 26, 2025.
“So four years later you’re going to send me this letter?” Hanna previously said in an interview, referring to the city. “Come on, really?”
The school board immediately refused to pay and said it was in the “best interests of the city to rescind its demand.”
Since then, the feud has been off the public radar until utility bills recently disclosed to the Democrat signaled an quiet end.
“Leon County Schools said they wouldn’t pay it,” Goad said. “So the next step would be to pursue legal action if that was the decision, but the city attorney’s office has not done that.”
Local government watchdog reporter Elena Barrera can be reached at ebarrera@tallahassee.com. Follow her on X: @elenabarreraaa.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee, Leon County Schools put end to fire fee fight