Joe Henderson
An item on the agenda for Friday’s Hillsborough County School Board meeting could lead people to believe it is seeking a referendum for a sales-tax hike in November to pay for major capital needs.
Not so fast.
Superintendent Jeff Eakins told Florida Politics late Monday that while the district is not ruling it out, the agenda item is more of a move “to see how this is going to play out, possibly. It’s just to give us options going forward.”
The district has an estimated $1 billion backlog in capital improvement needs, along with required new construction to keep up with a growing student population in the nation’s eighth-largest school system. Board members have discussed asking voters to approve a half-cent sales tax hike in November to help offset cuts in state funding, but that idea already has stiff competition.
Voters will be asked to approve a one-cent-per-dollar sales tax hike in November to fund transit needs, after a petition drive from the group All For Transportation was successful in getting a referendum on the ballot.
Given that, plus the tight time frame, it remains highly unlikely that even if the school district decides to proceed with the referendum initiative that it could be on the ballot by November.
That’s why Friday’s meeting may be more of an information exercise than actual policy.
“The best thing to do is analyze where we are at as far as the ballot goes,” Eakins said. “We are very intentional about meeting the needs of our kids.”
