By LINDA CHION KENNEY
School board members were set to meet this week to consider legal action against the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), who in a stunning 4-3 vote this month voted not to place one of two tax referendums on the ballot in November.
The first referendum, approved unanimously by the BOCC, calls for renewal of the Community Investment Tax (CIT), a half-cent sales tax that was approved by Hillsborough County voters in September 1996 for a period of 30 years. It is set to expire Nov. 30, 2026. The CIT allows for county officials to share half-cent sales tax proceeds with municipalities and the school district to fund infrastructure needs.
The second referendum the BOCC considered July 17, asking to raise real estate taxes by $1 for every $1,000 in assessed value, failed in a 4-3 vote, which placed each of the four elected Republican commissioners in opposition to the BOCC’s three elected Democrats. Republican Josh Wostal, on the board since 2022, led the charge, as he successfully moved to postpone the property tax increase referendum until 2026.
That got Van Ayres, superintendent of Hillsborough County schools, hopping mad. In comments at a hastily called press conference immediately following the July 17 vote, and in a letter to parents and staff, Ayres spared no words in expressing his dismay.
Ayres said it was both “puzzling” and “extremely disappointing” that the milage “primarily earmarked to pay our teachers, bus drivers, custodians, school principals and other staff a more competitive wage” had been taken “out of the hands of the voters” and decided by four commissioners.
At a special school board meeting scheduled for July 23, Ayres said he would be asking school board members to give him the authority “to seek all appropriate legal action to ensure the millage referendum is on the ballot Nov. 5 of this year.” The aim is to ask the judge “to compel the county commission to do their statutorily required duty.”
In effect, Ayres is seeking a ruling that would force the BOCC to send the tax question to the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections for inclusion on the Nov. 5 ballot. The deadline to get on the November ballot is Aug. 20.
The call is to raise the millage rate by one, which for the homeowner of the average-priced home in Hillsborough County would account for an additional $350 in taxes annually. In turn, Ayres said, that would pay for a salary boost of $6,000 for every teacher, new or veteran, and a $3,000 boost for support staff, including lunchroom workers and bus drivers.
Administrators also would get a $6,000 boost.
According to data presented at a school board workshop in February, voters have approved millage increases for schools in 24 counties, including Hernando, Pasco, Manatee and Sarasota. As result, starting salaries in all five counties ranked above Hillsborough, where the teacher salary schedule started at $47,500 a year and reached $72,500 after 25 years of service. That makes it more difficult for Hillsborough to attract and retain teachers, as it faces a shortfall of roughly 500 teachers as the new school year approaches.
The ongoing referendum drama pits one taxing authority against another, which is how the CIT came to be in the first place, according to Jim Hamilton, who spent his career in Hillsborough schools, rising through the ranks from teacher to deputy superintendent under Earl Lennard, who entered the Hillsborough school system as a first-grader and retired as its superintendent in 2005.
Courtesy photo
Superintendent Van Ayres, with school board member Henry “Shake” Washington in back, at the July 17 hastily called school board meeting
“Historically, there has been controversy before with regards to the district’s wish to put tax issues on the ballot,” Hamilton said, referring back to the mid-1990s, when Walter L. Sickles was superintendent of schools. “Both the school district and county government were seeking to add sales tax revenue for capital improvements. They were trying to do the same thing at the same time, so there was the potential for two tax increases.”
Both failed, and later, after Lennard succeeded Sickles, the move was to forge one unified sales tax for both purposes, which became the CIT.
As for today’s ongoing controversy, Hamilton said it is indeed puzzling, when one considers the purpose of any referendum, which he said, “is the opportunity for the voices of the people to be heard, which is the basis of our democratic society.”
“The county commission wasn’t being asked to approve the property tax,” Hamilton said. “It’s hard to understand why democratically elected officials would not want the voices of a democratic society to express its wishes. It is, after all, their money we’re talking about.”