Hillsborough Schools presented information about a half-penny sales surtax on Sept. 24.
Between now and the Nov. 6 election, Hillsborough County Public Schools Superintendent Jeff Eakins wants to make sure as many people as possible know the power of half a penny.
Eakins recently started an 11-stop tour of “town hall meetings” throughout the county to present information to the public about the proposed sales surtax and what the school board plans to do with the money. He visited Plant City High School’s auditorium Monday evening to bring an audience of school district employees, parents and students up to speed on the issue.
“I’m just talking and making sure the community is clear on why this is so important,” Eakins said. “It’s extremely important.”
Though Eakins said the county’s budget has been balanced, “inadequate” state funding prevents Hillsborough schools from quickly addressing big problems: deferred maintenance requests, overcrowded schools, aging buildings, safety issues and more. Base funding from the state legislature increased by $0.47 per student for the 2018-19 school year, but Eakins stressed how small that is (“One-hundredth of one percent,” he said) compared to rising costs of living and home sale prices.
Hillsborough has a $3 billion problem evenly split between deferred maintenance, growth and mortgages for schools built in the 1990s and 2000s. The proposed referendum would have Hillsborough bump the sales surtax up from one-eighth of a penny to one half of a penny to generate $1.3 billion over 10 years, which would assist current efforts to address these problems. HCPS has posted all of the information covered at his stops online at hillsboroughschools.org, which includes a school-by-school list of what would be fixed and a schedule of upcoming town hall meetings.
“It is our time, that we have to think about where we might be headed if we don’t have local investment,” Eakins said.
Though many in the audience seemed to approve of the plan, some weren’t happy with its current setup. Josephine Amato, a Barrington Middle School parent, said the plan needs to be tweaked to prioritize solving the problems with broken air conditioning systems and schools being at or over capacity.
“I want to see a plan that deals with growth happening right now,” Amato said.
Eakins said HCPS is aware of those problems and does have plans to address those needs, which involve combining referendum dollars with impact fee dollars.
If the vote for the referendum passes in November, Eakins said the changes would go into effect in January 2019.
