{"id":47102,"date":"2025-11-14T23:19:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T23:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/47102\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T23:19:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T23:19:14","slug":"polk-commission-must-vote-to-place-school-tax-increase-on-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/47102\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk Commission must vote to place school tax increase on ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reversing their earlier\u00a0stance,\u00a0a consensus of the Polk County Commission on Nov. 14 now\u00a0say\u00a0they\u00a0will vote for a school district referendum asking voters for a 1 mil increase in\u00a0ad valorem\u00a0property\u00a0taxes because\u00a0Florida statute requires the board to vote for it.<\/p>\n

\"Polk<\/p>\n

Polk County Attorney Randy Mink advises Commission on school tax referendum.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0vote would come Nov. 18 after the commissioners and\u00a0the\u00a0public\u00a0have time to speak on the\u00a0matter\u00a0during public comments \u2013 and not\u00a0during the first week of\u00a0January, as the board voted to do at its last meeting.<\/p>\n

Like it or not,\u00a0current\u00a0state law requires the commission to approve a referendum on a tax increase for schools\u00a0once the district\u00a0initiates\u00a0a request\u00a0for one.<\/p>\n

The School Board\u00a0voted unanimously in April to draft a referendum<\/a>, asking voters to approve a levy of one mill, or $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value, the Ledger has previously reported. The district estimates that the tax would generate about $80 million over four years.<\/p>\n

County Attorney Randy Mink\u00a0advised\u00a0the commission that it had \u201cno discretion\u201d and the vote was \u201cministerial in nature,\u201d\u00a0at the Nov. 14 agenda review in Bartow.<\/p>\n

Troutman champions a change in statue<\/p>\n

That is something\u00a0first-term\u00a0Commissioner\u00a0Becky Troutman has asked\u00a0state\u00a0Rep.\u00a0Jennifer Canady\u00a0(R-Lakeland)\u00a0to change, because she does not want the\u00a0residents\u00a0to blame\u00a0the commission\u00a0for\u00a0a\u00a0tax\u00a0increase.<\/p>\n

\"Polk<\/p>\n

Polk County Commissioner Becky Troutman during a commission meeting Tuesday August 5, 2025 in Bartow Fl. Ernst Peters\/The Ledger<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working through state statute to get this changed.\u00a0I think we\u00a0are going to be successful in that,\u201d Troutman said at\u00a0the\u00a0agenda review.\u00a0She said in the future, she wanted the School Board\u00a0to vote on a mileage increase,\u00a0and\u00a0a referendum would then\u00a0go directly to the supervisor of election to place on the ballot.<\/p>\n

Canady did not\u00a0respond\u00a0Nov. 14\u00a0to\u00a0an\u00a0email and\u00a0a\u00a0phone message for comment.<\/p>\n

Mink told the commission on Nov. 14 that\u00a0he\u2019ll\u00a0place\u00a0a\u00a0letter\u00a0on the\u00a0commission\u2019s\u00a0agenda for Nov. 18\u00a0and asking the legislature to change the current statute requiring the commission vote to approve tax referendums.<\/p>\n

The district has said the\u00a0tax\u00a0increase\u00a0for\u00a0the county\u2019s\u00a0public schools\u00a0is necessary to help\u00a0pay teachers and\u00a0other costs.<\/p>\n

Millage rate increase for more than teacher’s pay<\/p>\n

The Polk County School District has the lowest teacher pay in Florida.\u00a0And the state\u00a0of Florida has paid\u00a0the lowest salaries\u00a0to\u00a0its\u00a0educators\u00a0of\u00a0all\u00a050 states in the last two years, according to the\u00a0National Education Association<\/a>\u00a0reports.<\/p>\n

\"Polk<\/p>\n

Polk County Public Schools Superintendent Frederick Heid answers media questions during a press conference at the Polk County Schools office in Bartow Fl. Thursday August 4, 2022. ERNST PETERS\/ THE LEDGER<\/p>\n

Polk Schools\u00a0Superintendent Frederick Heid\u00a0and two school board members\u00a0attended the commission\u00a0agenda\u00a0review\u00a0on Friday for any questions the commissioners might have.\u00a0Heid also tried to clarify what a millage rate increase would fund and provide further context for the request<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are ranked 63 out of 67 (Florida) districts in school funding. We receive on average $300 less\u00a0per pupil\u00a0than\u00a0all of\u00a0the surrounding\u00a0larger\u00a0districts,\u201d\u00a0Heid said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year in order to achieve a 7% increase on average for staff we cut programs,\u201d Heid said. \u201cWe’re one of the most efficient school districts in the state of Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u00a0added that\u00a0\u201cWe are the lowest paid employee group of all the school districts because 27 of 28 districts have passed referendums.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heid also countered claims the referendum would all be for teacher\u2019s salaries, since\u00a0\u201cit does not say that in the\u00a0ballot language,\u201d he told the commissioners.<\/p>\n

The referendum language specifies how the revenue would be used. About 18% would be directed to charter schools, Heid said in his statement the Ledger has previously reported.<\/p>\n

Of the remainder, 80% (or $53.1 million) would go to \u201cschool-based staff retention and recruitment bonuses,\u201d Heid said. The final 20% would go to \u201cspecial program supports for fine\/performing arts, school safety and security, workforce development\/career and technical education, early childhood development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could the 1 mil ask\u00a0be\u00a0lowered?<\/p>\n

Commissioner\u00a0Michael\u00a0Scott\u00a0suggested\u00a0in light of\u00a0the $13 million in school\u00a0taxes\u00a0to be\u00a0generated by the recently announced data center<\/a> project in Fort\u00a0Meade,\u00a0the\u00a0district\u00a0may want to consider lowering its millage rate request in the referendum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u00a0comes out to 18% of the\u00a0milage rate increase being asked,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201c18% of it would be taken care of\u00a0essentially by\u00a0the addition of that project.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo\u00a0for the school board to\u00a0be asking\u00a0for the 1\u00a0mil,\u00a0basically,\u00a0what’s\u00a0the justification for that? I know\u00a0that’s\u00a0not on the board.\u00a0It’s\u00a0not on our part to provide the justification, but the public was asking instead of\u00a01\u00a0mil why\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0it be 0.8\u00a0mil,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Commissioner\u00a0Martha Santiago noted that instead of the\u00a0County Commission\u00a0being\u00a0viewed by the public as\u00a0agreeing to\u00a0raise\u00a0the\u00a0milage\u00a0rate,\u00a0she wanted it made clear that the vote was driven by the statute not by the Commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we all said it in the last meeting, that again nobody was opposed to the concept,\u201d Santiago said.\u00a0\u201cWhat we wanted to make\u00a0sure,\u00a0and\u00a0I\u00a0think that I\u00a0publicly said,\u00a0I just got my first text saying why\u00a0we the commissioners are raising the millage rate when we have not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd since I have been here,\u00a0we have never raised the millage rate,\u00a0she\u00a0said. \u201cIn fact, we have decreased the millage rate three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: State law forces Polk Commission vote on a tax referendum for schools<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reversing their earlier\u00a0stance,\u00a0a consensus of the Polk County Commission on Nov. 14 now\u00a0say\u00a0they\u00a0will vote for a school district…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4184,5665,28,30,29,14279,24758,7074,10545,4043,4719,6293,30666],"class_list":{"0":"post-47102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-commissioners","9":"tag-county-commission","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-florida-statute","14":"tag-millage-rate","15":"tag-property-taxes","16":"tag-referendum","17":"tag-school-board","18":"tag-school-district","19":"tag-tax-increase","20":"tag-the-commission"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47102","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=47102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}