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Bay County, Fla:
The Bay District School Board is giving property owners a break. Thursday, board members made the decision to lower the millage rate.
The school board was able to drop the millage rate by about .25. That is an 8.19 percent decrease from last year. That means the district is giving up nearly four million dollars in tax money.
“I’m just glad we’ve been working on this for two years, a plan to reduce the millage, answer the responsibilities for the students and the property owners,” Superintendent Bill Husfelt said.
If city millage rates don’t increase homeowners in Bay County are in luck. For example, someone who owns a one hundred thousand home paid about 762 dollars in taxes last year. With the lower school board millage rate, that same property owner will only have to pay about 740 dollars in taxes this year. That’s over a 20 dollar savings. The school board voted to double those savings by dropping the millage rate again by the same amount next year.
The superintendent says the school board budgeted just enough to be able to get by for the rest of the 2010-2011 school year. However more budget cuts are on the way. And the board is really relying on the half cent sales tax to pass to try to make those technology improvements to schools.
“If the half cent sales tax doesn’t go through, then the public is telling us we don’t want to fund capital projects thought the half cent sales tax,” Husfelt said. “So we’ve got to look at how they want to fund them. So we will have to find other sources to fund it.”
Husfelt says Bay County has the sixth lowest local capital improvement (LCI) fund in the state. That means they are charging less for property taxes than other counties.
The vote for the half cent sales tax is set for August 24th.
I’m all for this half-cent sales tax. Why should it be just the homeowners footing the bill for the schools when everybody send their kids to school? This will make it a lot more fair for everybody. It’s only fair that everybody carry their share of the load. It’s about time this happened.
I agree with yourpointis. Better to lower property taxes. Half-cent should go to teacher raises or cost of living increase as they have had no COLA, for years and the teacher pay is at the bottom around here. Also, Maintenance is bad at most schools with bugs,cockroaches, and ants everywhere. They need janitors and more maintenance. Some of the schools look like dumps. Landscaping is non-existent at some. Looking at Rutherford, the middle school and Springfield Elementary, on school house row, they could use it.The beach schools are nice. Hutchinson got a face lift and it looks good.Arnold is real nice.
Surfside needs some work but there are alot of others that need more.
I will vote for the half cent and hope it is put to good use and not mismanagement at headquarters. Teachers shouldn’t have to spend the little money they make on supplies and photocopies. Buy some more photocopiers for every school. I see them at office depot,paying out of their pocket!
I say go with it..better to have lower property taxes and increase the sales tax so that all the tourism helps pay for the school system budget.
Dewey712: You crack me up. My computer does that too. It’s a auto correct function that happens when you hit a wrong key on your keyboard but I think if you go into your settings (in that same window) you can find a way to shut it off and return to normal typing. Thanks for the laugh. I’ve been there too.
I want to know where it says a school board can raise or lower taxes.
Did it sound like they are saying:
Give us our 1/2 cent sales tax increase or we will increase your millage rate next year?
Sure comes across as a veiled threat.
i have alot to say but i have a dell laptop and every time you standrt typing it jumps around and delete’s what you just typed took me 10 mins just to type this.
You’re still not getting that half cent suckers, so give it up.
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RO agreed with me….You come over to the RIGHT RO???I’m so happy that you finally got something right.