The Hernando County School Board voted to approve the tentative millage rates for fiscal year 2016-2017 at the first public budget hearing on July 19th.
One segment of the property tax is the 1.5 mill capital outlay tax, which will generate $12,420,332 in revenue during the 2016-2017 fiscal year. Similar to the half cent sales tax revenue ($7.5 million for FY 2016-2017), the capital outlay tax can only be spent on capital projects which include expenses such as construction, remodeling, maintenance and technology. It cannot be spent on teacher salaries or benefits.
Both the property and the sales tax capital outlay have a list of items that the school Board plans to spend the tax money on.
At the first budget hearing Anthony Palmieri expressed concern during citizen comments, referring to the published capital outlay tax notice, “Construction and remodeling, maintenance and repair….Some of these items are the same things used for the half cent… There has to be a limit for taxation, you can’t have everything.”
Superintendent Lori Romano responded, “The specifics of the advertisement are given to us. It’s very specific about how we have to advertise… So when you talk about the 1.5 mills, that’s outlined and dictated to us on what that money can be spent on, in addition to the half cent sales tax money that’s done by resolution which is also very specific to what that money will be spent on.”
She continued, “Those two documents you can lay side by side and you can see the two differences in what that money will be spent on in particular the half cent sales tax so there’s no redundancy or duplication.”
It is unclear what two documents she is referring to, but it would seem that she was referring to the project list for the half cent sales tax and tax notice for the capital outlay property tax. There does not appear to be a specific project list for the capital outlay property tax.
The School District outlined the half cent sales tax facilities projects within the approved ordinance for placing the referendum on the ballot. The facilities project list is basically a guide for the district and is not set in stone.
Both the 1.5 mill notice and the half cent facilities project list show spending on HVAC and several other construction, maintenance and repair type expenses. The half cent facilities project list shows $60,727,423 of the $87,244,818 in funds generated by the half cent sales surtax over ten years will be spent on HVAC.The 1.5 mill capital outlay tax notice indicates in general areas, what the money will be spent on. Specifically it points to the acquisition of three new school buses as well as new motor vehicles, which the project list for the half cent sales tax does not mention. In addition, the notice indicates that the money will be spent on technology. For the half cent sales surtax, although it can be spent on technology, the ordinance does not indicate technology spending in the facilities project list.
The capital projects fund budget is estimated at $43,016,334 for fiscal year 2016-2017, which includes both tax revenues from the half cent sales tax and the capital outlay tax as well as other revenue streams. It will be important for the school board to provide actuals of how this money was spent.
