Posted on 09/30/2024 3:15:24 PM PDT by 4Runner
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke out against the Hillsborough County School Board’s lawsuit over a proposed property tax increase to help fund teacher salaries.
“You do not need to raise anybody’s taxes,” the governor exclaimed in his most animated response to a question at a news conference in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. “Why are you trying to raise property taxes in the midst of some of the worst inflation we’ve seen in the modern history of this country?”
During a special meeting Tuesday, the school board voted to file a lawsuit against the Hillsborough County Commission over the postponed property tax increase that was set for the upcoming November ballot.
The millage referendum, if approved, would have generated $177 million for teacher pay, school leaders estimated.
(Excerpt) Read more at wfla.com ...
Bear in mind, 75 to 80 percent of a Hillsborough County property owner's tax bill is already earmarked for local school as well as state school expenses. This is on every county property owner's tax bill, for all to see.
I found out from replies to a previous article posted here on FR that many Florida counties have generated monies to fund increased salaries for their public school teachers through an increase in the county sales tax.
These counties did NOT saddle their property tax-paying home owners with this obligation, as is now being proposed by the referendum on the ballot for November 5 in Hillsborough County.
What I also found was the counties which opted to increase the sales tax versus levying a tax on property owners, were politically RED counties.
Hillsborough is and has been for years a politically BLUE county. No explanation has been forthcoming as to why Hillsborough or its School Board chose to levy an additional tax against its already-strapped homeowners, versus a sales tax increase, which would spread the cost of the salary increase over the entire population of the County, which, at 1,420,000 people, is one of the most populous in the nation.
Questions need to be asked why Hillsborough County and the School Board have opted for a referendum which obligates only property owners of the county, to the exclusion of everyone else, to fund a salary increase for teachers with a price tag upwards of $350 million.
My take on this is, it may have been the result of a political decision, where the Supervisor of Elections Office together with the Tax Collectors Office decided it would be a good idea to cross-reference their respective databases.
And they did so. And determined in that way the voter registration of all property owners. And confirmed also an overwhelming majority of them were registered Republican.
They then decided it would be fitting to have a captive audience of minority party Republicans in a politically Blue county fund a salary increase for 15,162 public school teachers, which the cross-referencing also showed were, by an overwhelming majority, to be registered Democrat.
The possible targeting of registered Republican property owners to finance a salary increase benefiting only a heavily Democrat-registered cohort of teachers ought to be making a lot of people in authority in the State of Florida mad as hell. But I don't see anything happening in time before election day to put a stop to this local fleecing by the Democrat party and their friends, the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association.
We need what is missing--a rational explanation for why the decision was made to saddle registered Republican property owners with the obligation to fund a massive salary increase for 15,162 unionized and registered Democrat school teachers, instead of a decision opting for a politically-neutral increase in the sales tax, which would have been a no-brainer, in a county as heavily-populated as Hillsborough.
That’s a 23,084 dollar raise per teacher. They are nutz!!!!!
Teachers from the highest universities, to grade school are overpaid. How about give raises on results, and set the standards TO BE REACHED?
As soon as rent agreements have to be renewed it will hit renters as well, it will just take the form of increases in rent.
Will the property owners raise rents?
And everything else. That’s a lot of money that will go into the local economy.
I’m glad to have moved out of Hillsborough country to a much redder, and more rural setting. Best move I ever made.
I sorta was in a rural area in lake county. No more. lol. They are building homes like crazy!!!!! All the orange groves are being bulldozed down for housing. And the infrastructure is not updated so the roads are bumper during many parts of the day. It’s going to be worse unfortunately.
More complicated. These are real inflation adjusted tax increases that take an ever increasing percentage of all incomes. They never get enough.
If a private union chooses to strike, I can boycott whatever they produce and sell.
When teachers strike, I still have to pay my property taxes to support them. I have no choice other than to lose my home.
These are some of the least qualified people ton”teach”. They call themselves “educators”.
F teachers unions.
Great point. Some people who pay no taxes vote to increase property taxes on those who have to pay.
They are too stupid to understand that their rents will increase proportionately and cry bloody murder when it happens.
Now that I think of it, FL had better/bigger water moccasins too!
One of the big problems with education at every level is the explosion of the bureaucracies. I believe good teachers should be supported and paid for what they deliver. I don’t believe in bloated bureaucracies which suck up scarce resources. It’s the interaction of teachers and students which is important, not a lot of the other stuff.
One of the big problems with education at every level is the explosion of the bureaucracies. I believe good teachers should be supported and paid for what they deliver. I don’t believe in bloated bureaucracies which suck up scarce resources. It’s the interaction of teachers and students which is important, not a lot of the other stuff.
Drop a constitutional amendment proposal bill in two congressional hoppers and fight to limit the ability of Democrats to buy votes at the expense of the middle class:
Levies on any residential property of less than 2799 square feet of finished living space shall be no higher than the 2019 dollar amounts on the property, or for a newer or since resold property no higher than what it would have been levied at for 2019 if it lacked owner specific tax breaks, increased by 3% per calendar year since 2019 and by any percentage increase to its finished living space.
It might make Congress deep red come January.
Sarasota County School Board wants to increase the milage rate. That’s a property tax increase.
No!
Vouchers
The failure of our public schools can no longer be ignored. It’s time for massive change, it needs to be a top 5 priority of Trump.
Been saying this for years. Outlaw public unions.
You would enjoy a book by Eric Hanushek https://www.amazon.com/Making-Schools-Work-Performance-Controlling/dp/0815734263
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