Florida BOE to Local School Boards: Raise Property Taxes to Pay for Our Charter School Priorities
The roll-out of Tony Bennett’s FLDOE budget included capital outlay for charter schools, but none for public schools. Consider this bit of nuance in Jason Shultz’ Palm Beach Post story which the FLDOE uses to justify their position :
The state’s budget request reflects the Board of Education’s priorities to assist charter schools, said Pam Stewart, chancellor of public schools for the state Department of Education. Stewart also pointed out that individual school districts can levy local individual property taxes of $1.50 for every $1,000 of taxable value to raise money for their local capital needs.
Districts statewide raised about $2 billion from local property taxes for their capital improvements last year and received another $401 million in sales tax revenues that could be used for capital