{"id":301902,"date":"2026-06-09T23:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T23:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/301902\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T23:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T23:11:12","slug":"jacksonville-city-council-sets-up-november-vote-to-continue-school-property-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/301902\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville City Council sets up November vote to continue school property tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacksonville voters will get a chance to vote in November to raise their property taxes for schools even as they can lower them to support other parts of the government.<\/p>\n

The Duval County School Board\u2019s<\/a> desire to get a tax extension referendum<\/a> on the ballot was fulfilled Tuesday when the measure was discharged from committee and voted up unanimously by the Jacksonville City Council.<\/a><\/p>\n

Republican Raul Arias said he supported the deferral motion in last week\u2019s Finance Committee because he wanted more information on the tax, since he wasn\u2019t on the Council when it was first passed. But after meeting with School Board members, union representatives, and Superintendent\u00a0Chris Bernier, his \u201cheart was moved\u201d and he supports discharge because people in the United States \u201chave the right to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet the community decide what they want to do,\u201d Arias advised.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you say no to this, you\u2019re saying no to children,\u201d said Democrat\u00a0Tyrona Clark-Murray, ahead of the motion to discharge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ordinance 2026-387<\/a> would allow for voters to decide to extend for four years a one mill ad valorem tax to boost teacher pay, extending a levy first approved back in 2022, when the General Counsel<\/a>\u00a0said state law compelled the City Council to put the tax hike on the ballot.<\/p>\n

City Council members spoke in favor of putting the measure on the ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the American way,\u201d said Republican\u00a0Mike Gay.<\/p>\n

Republican\u00a0Ron Salem said he spoke with the Superintendent and was sold.<\/p>\n

Arias spoke again, saying that school professionals need to be able to \u201cspend time with their families\u201d rather than fretting about this measure getting on the ballot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

President-elect\u00a0Nick Howland opposed the original push in 2022, saying there was other funding, but now \u201cfunds have been depleted\u201d from the American Rescue Act.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0property tax extension<\/a> would continue a tax agreed to in 2022 if a majority approves it in November, should it ultimately make the ballot.<\/p>\n

That threshold is less than the 60% required for state ballot initiatives, such as the one that could increase the homestead property tax amendment<\/a> on the same ballot that would increase the exemption and take nearly $300 million out of city revenues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville voters will get a chance to vote in November to raise their property taxes for schools even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[126699,4302,109858,116,4040,118,117],"class_list":["post-301902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-2026-387","tag-duval-county-school-board","tag-duval-county-school-district","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-city-council","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301902","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=301902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}