Renew Broward school property tax, for kids’ sake

Broward voters face an important tax question on the Aug. 23 primary ballot.

The county school district, the nation’s sixth largest, wants voters to extend and increase a local property tax to pay for higher salaries and bonuses for teachers and other school employees, improved school security and more mental health services. We recommend a yes vote on this tax for three main reasons.

The astronomical cost of living in South Florida makes it nearly impossible for people to live here — especially underpaid public employees who work for the county’s largest employer.

Second, teachers are a pillar of our communities and we need to honor and reward them, even if that costs a little more.

Third, despite occasional gains in recent years, the stingy Legislature spends way too little money on public education, so local property owners have to help close the gap.

The Broward proposal would increase an existing tax that is already being levied at higher rates by adjoining Palm Beach and Miami-Dade school districts. In 2018, Broward voters approved a tax of a half mill or $50 for every $100,000 of taxable property value. By law, the tax expires after four years. The latest proposal would extend the tax for four years and increase it to a full mill, or $100 for every $100,000 of taxable property value.

What it pays for

Three-quarters of the new money will be spent on pay raises and bonuses for teachers and other workers, including bus drivers and cafeteria workers. Another 17% is earmarked for school safety, including retaining 500 security officers, and the remaining 8% will be spent on mental health.

According to state Department of Education data, Broward’s average teacher salary last year was $53,836, only slightly higher than the state average of $51,167. Six counties, including Collier, Flagler and Okaloosa, paid their teachers more on average.

Superintendent Vickie Cartwright told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board that it’s impossible to tell voters exactly how much of a raise teachers and others will receive because it has to be collectively bargained with unions.

The district’s full-time student population dropped by 11,000 during the pandemic, and state funding is tied to enrollment. Cartwright said district expenses are escalating for electricity, health care, gas and other fixed costs.

What it costs you

The half-mill tax now produces about $115 million a year. The district estimates that a full mill would generate at least $223 million the first year, but officials acknowledge the amount could be much higher, based on the final property tax roll due in July.

The preliminary tax roll, with its surge in home values, projects $170 million more for the school district next year.

By law, about 20% of the tax money, or about $46 million, must be allocated to charter schools, according to a district executive summary.

According to the school district, an average homeowner with an assessed home value of $393,755 would pay about $274 a year, or $23 a month. The average condominium owner, with an assessed value of $192,806 would pay $158 a year, or $13 a month — the cost of a breakfast.

The Sun Sentinel urges a yes vote despite our strong opposition to the referendum’s timing.

A broad-based tax on property owners should be proposed at the greatest convenience to all voters. A question of this magnitude rightly belongs on the November general election ballot.

But the Broward County

School Board voted to place the question on the Aug. 23 primary, with a lot fewer voters, most of them liberal Democrats inclined to support a tax, especially for education. School officials say they used the August date for financial reasons because the original tax was on the August 2018 ballot (where it passed 64% to 36% with a 24% voter turnout).

Still, as Broward Mayor Michael Udine said, the timing looks like a “trick” to avoid all those Republicans who will be voting in November. (Palm Beach and Miami-Dade will put their tax extensions on the November ballot.)

While we consider the timing decision a big mistake, the tax itself matters more, and it must be emphasized that all voters can vote on the tax in August. They also should turn out anyway, to vote in nonpartisan school board and judicial races.

Better outreach

A well-informed public is more likely to trust its political leaders, even during painful economic times.

That means the district needs to recruit culturally, politically diverse community leaders to explain in clear, simple terms how the money will be spent and why it is needed. Too little information is out there. The bipartisan Broward Workshop, which endorsed the original tax in 2018, has not taken a stand on the renewal because “we don’t have enough information,” a staffer told us.

It’s June. Primary voters will start casting mail ballots in a few weeks. By picking the earlier date, the School Board gave itself much less time to make the case for the tax.

The district has a web page, browardschools.com/secure, with information on the referendum and answers to frequently asked questions. We urge the district to ramp up its outreach — including addressing morepointed questions. The Q-and-A should level with the public on why such an important question is on the ballot in the dead of summer and why it takes so long for voter-approved projects from a 2014 construction bond issue to get done, as the Sun Sentinel’s Scott Travis has reported.

A model for this approach is heavily-Republican Charlotte County on the southwest coast, which will ask voters to approve a similar tax and uses a snappy slogan, “Vote yes for success.” Charlotte’s Q-and-A includes the question: “Why should I care?” Broward needs to answer the same question.

Similar taxes are being proposed in Flagler, Hillsborough, Lake, Marion, Martin and Pasco counties. Voters overwhelmingly approved a similar tax in March in Sarasota, a Republican bastion where School Board members faced public hostility over a mask mandate during the height of the pandemic.

That raises another point. Gov. Ron DeSantis and his allies have unfairly demonized our schools and forced their partisan agenda into our kids’ classrooms, where it doesn’t belong. Support for this modest tax will send a powerful message that people in Broward care about and support their schools.

With the fervent hope that the school district will make a much stronger case, the Sun Sentinel recommends a yes vote on Aug. 23.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel. com.

Cartwright