ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Orange County schools face big budget challenges, and school leaders are likely to ask voters to keep a tax already on the books this November to help bridge the gap. We\u2019re talking about the extra one mill property tax that supplements the district\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n
The school board discussed the proposal and the language for a possible November ballot question on Tuesday. School board members say the one mill currently pays for eleven percent of the district\u2019s budget at a time when money is very tight.<\/p>\n
Orange County homeowners have been paying an extra one mill on their property taxes since voters first approved the idea back in 2010. That one mill translates into one dollar in taxes paid for every $1,000 of a home\u2019s assessed value.<\/p>\n
Orange County School Board Member Stephanie Vanos represents District Six.<\/p>\n
Vanos wants to clarify the proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a tax increase. This is maintaining what already exists for our Orange County Public Schools,\u201d Vanos said.<\/p>\n
District officials say that the one mill tax rate would stay the same if voters renew it, but if a homeowner\u2019s assessed property value goes up, their tax bill could too.<\/p>\n
The district\u2019s data shows the one mill generated more than $242 million for the current school year to pay for academic programs, retaining teachers, arts and music programs, athletics and some field trips.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this renewal does not pass, we will see a huge deficit in our general operating budget. Again, that is important because the state funding is not keeping up with the inflation, and so this helps to bridge about half of that gap between what we get from the state in funding and where we should be to just keep up with inflation,\u201d Vanos said.<\/p>\n
School Board Member Alicia Farrant serves District Three. She realizes it\u2019s not popular to talk about taxes.<\/p>\n
Farrant says, \u201cNobody loves taxes, but it is something that\u2019s already in place, and I do believe that we use it wisely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Farrant urges taxpayers with concerns about their property taxes to study the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee what is, what it really goes to and really it does help our public schools here in Orange County,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Orange County voters have renewed the extra one mill on their property taxes every four years since it first passed in 2010. During the 2014 election, 77 percent of Orange County voters decided to renew the one mill. In 2018, 84 percent voted yes, and in 2022, 82 percent voted to renew it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Orange County schools face big budget challenges, and school leaders are likely to ask voters to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4996,274,113,1337,115,772,139,141,140,278,835],"class_list":["post-268727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-education","tag-app-top-stories","tag-education","tag-keith-landry","tag-news","tag-on-air-ticker-article","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}