Chairman: Consequences dire without half-mil tax

By Steve Estes

When voters go to the polls January 31 to select a Republican nominee for President, they will also be asked to allow the Monroe County School Board to continue to shift a half mil tax levy from their capital projects account to operations.

“Without the money, the consequences to the district could be dire,” said John Dick, school board chairman.

The loss of that tax revenue could mean a $9 million shortfall in next year’s school budget, a loss Dick is unsure the district could make up without wholesale cuts at all levels, including the classroom.

“Just a few years ago the schools had $94 for operations. Now we have $80 million. Next year it will be down to $76 or $78 million. Take that $9 million away from us and we’re at $69 million,” said Dick. “We’ve had the same general number of students that entire time, we’re just doing more with less.”

Regardless of the vote outcome, school tax bills for local property owners won’t be affected.

“We will continue to collect the half mil, we’ll just have to put the money back into capital accounts instead of operations and find another method to fund operations,” said Dick.

He says student achievement has been climbing in the past years, “but any deep cuts will have to affect student achievement. It’s our students that will definitely feel the sting.”

Some of the things that might need to be done to balance a budget without the extra operational money might seem Draconian, says Dick, but they are things that could become necessary without continuation of the conversion.

“There’s a chance we’d have to cut sports at most levels. We would definitely have to close schools and shift students into fewer buildings, maybe close Marathon schools and shift everyone into the underutilized high school there to save money. Closing Key West elementary schools would have to be on the table, and maybe shifting elementary students to Coral Shores where we have some room,” he said.

Voters overwhelmingly approved the millage transfer when it was first proposed by then-interim Superintendent John Padget.

“I think we’re going to get voter approval, but it’s not going to be easy,” said Dick. “People remember the financial scandal of the Acevedo tenure. They remember the consultant reports that showed administrative costs out of line with other districts our size.”

He has been one of the most vocal board members about waste in the district and about prioritizing spending so that more money goes to the classroom and less into administrative costs.

“We’re much better in those areas than we have been in the past and I want the voters to reward us for digging our way out,” he said.

Without the extra money in the operations account, Dick said the board may have to seek innovative ways to use capital money to cut costs.

“We can’t use capital money on salaries, but we can buy new busses to decrease maintenance and fuel costs, we can spend money on renovating schools to accommodate more students and save money on multiple-building utility and maintenance costs. Maybe there is equipment we can buy that will replace personnel. I don’t know what that is yet, but if it’s there I will find it,” he said.

To meet next year’s projected budget deficit if voters don’t approve the continuation of the conversion, Dick said salary costs would have to be trimmed an average of $8,000 per year across the board.

“Obviously we can’t do something like that because we have janitors, bus aides, food service workers who don’t make a lot more than that. We’d have to adopt some kind of graduated scale where those at the top lose significantly more than those at the bottom,” he said.

Without the referendum’s passage, next year’s budget could be a “total disaster,” he said.

Thus far, he said the overall response to the request has been very positive.

“People understand that this has no effect on their tax bills, it just allows us to put the money into the classroom where it’s needed the most,” said Dick.

Even though Jan. 31 is a Republican Presidential primary, every voter regardless of party will have a ballot to cast a yea or nay on the tax referendum question.

“We’ve had some bad things happen to us in the recent past, but we’ve gotten much better and we have a board committed to doing even better,” said Dick.