New tax money to help hire officers, counselors for Palm Beach schools
Proposal calls for teacher pay raises
A surge of new tax money will pay for teacher raises, 110 more police officers and an assortment of mental health professionals in Palm Beach County schools next year.
Under a budget proposal presented to the School Board on Wednesday, every middle school would have three guidance counselors, up from one or two at most schools. Schools would get extra security money for special events: $10,000 for every middle school, up from $1,000, and $20,000 for every high school, up from $6,000. And 40 newly hired psychologists would float among schools to help with students’ emotional health.
Board member Debra Robinson said she wants the district to choose the new mental health staffers carefully. She said the district has never hired such a large number of psychologists and social workers.
“This is uncharted territory for us,” Robinson said. “I just don’t want us to mess this up.”
Voters overwhelmingly approved the new tax in November. The tax quad-
rupled a previous school property tax to $1 for every $1,000 of taxable value for the next four years.
Palm Beach County schools received $4.3 million from the state for improved mental health care through the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act, passed by the state Legislature after the massacre that killed 17 students and staff in Parkland. The act requires schools to refer for mental health services any student who has made a threat against the school or is disruptive. The schools must show how they diagnosed and treated these students.
School Board members said the money offered by the Legislature was not enough to provide sufficient mental health services at each school. That’s when the district proposed the property tax, which 72 percent of voters approved.
The district offered details Wednesday on how the money will be spent. Schools will get 110 additional police officers, including school resource officers, detectives and K-9 specialists. The district will continue to pay for 55 security monitors and 36 police aides and will add four aides next year.
Teachers also will be paid more for the next four years. Instructors with one to four years experience will get $1,000 extra each year; those with five to nine years will get $5,000 a year; and veterans with 10 years or more will get $10,000 for the four years of the tax.
In another initiative, not funded through the tax, schools will get more money for fine arts, mostly for new band and orchestra instruments, the first new instrument purchase in 20 years, officials said. Another proposal not funded through the tax will allow every high school to hire a testing coordinator, freeing up guidance counselors who had previously been required to supervise the abundance of state exams required of Florida students.