Finally someone explains school millage! I was present last night at the Rosemary Beach Town Hall to hear our Superintendent Carlene Anderson explain the proposed school millage increase. You may be like me and did not realize that a portion of the school district millage is set by the state, is required, and cannot be changed by the school district that is the portion that is causing the slight increase. I spoke with her after the meeting and found out even more information, she said that a portion of the millage the school controls actually went down. Before complaining I think it is important that we know how millage is set and I am glad that Anderson shed some light on it last night.
This is my take of that meeting. The only members of the public present were myself and Tim Yandell. Other than myself asking some questions about student count used to calculate the numbers, Mark Davis and Sharon Roberts were the two that asked repeated questions about the tax increase. No press was present. I commend Tim for coming. Usually it is just me and the press when they discuss budget issues. There were some school district employees in attendance.
Yes the required local effort did increase. Everyone is having to put more money into the State's hands to redistribute to the counties based on their student count. Jim McCall spent an extraordinary amount of time going over what the word required means and why the school board should not feel bad about raising the millage because it was REQUIRED by the State. Shame he never went over what the word discretionary meant.
State Law Requirement 1.782 mills
Capital Outlay 1.301 mills
Basic Discretionary .498 mills
Supp Discretionary .044 mills
Voted millage .500 mills
As you can see there is only a REQUIRED millage of 1.782 mills plus the .5 mill voted tax. The 1.782 millage did go up by .086 mills. Now if they are going to use the excuse that the State made them raise the millage then they should have raised the millage .086 mills. But they did not. They raised it only .078 mills.
The School Board could have cut that .078 mills, approx 1.2 million dollars from Capital Outlay, Basic Discretionary, or Supplemental Discretionary. The millage amounts to approximate 1.2 million dollars and with the current budget they will have 9.1 million dollars in their fund balance or savings account. This is the account that raises come from along with other incidentals throughout the year.
Member Mark Davis immediately identified 1.1 million dollars that is being rolled over for land purchases as a place to cut. This money has been accumulating, the board has no land needs at this time or no voiced intentions to purchase land in the next year. Because it has accumulated over multiple years it would take several quarter page ads, approximate cost $800 to eliminate from what I understood. Other board members objected to the cost of advertisement. We could then reduce the fund balance to make up the difference. Others objected stating that we may have to cut the budget later. No one ever could figure out why today versus later would make any difference other than the taxpayer would have more money in their pocket. Mark also made three other suggestions as to how to accomplish the same task. By then I was so aggravated I got lost in the whole plan. I do recall that someone made the suggestion to delay Emerald Coast Middle School construction. Something that I would be strongly against as the room is desperately needed and has been for years.
On another note, we have had some fantastic facilities completed recently. The new Mossy Head Elementary school at a cost of 21 million dollars is scheduled to open this year. Last I heard there were 151 students registered to attend.
And we are in the process of finishing the state of the art, 35.7 million dollar Walton High School, for 708 students.
And we did complete restrooms and a concession stand this year at South Walton High School. Not sure about the costs, I do know it has been needed for four or so years.
Hope this information is useful.
And the vote was:
Motion by Wilkerson to raise millage, second by Laird.
Wilkerson -AYE
Laird -AYE
Roberts- NAY
Davis-NAY
Barnhill-AYE
A historic event. The millage for the Walton County School District was raised for the first time in 11 years.