Promoting the half and half

Chuck Slater says the difference between education and advocacy is emotion.

He doesn’t want emotion.

He wants to talk about facts — ones he believes will result in the passage of two half-cent sales taxes up for public referendum in November, if the public is well educated about them.

One is a renewal of a 15-year tax for the Manatee County School Board, and the other is a new infrastructure sales tax for Manatee County.

“We believe in this community and what it needs to do,” Slater said. “We think if they listen and learn, they will vote accordingly.”

If approved collectively, Manatee County’s sales tax rate will increase from 61/2 cents to 7 cents per dollar — the same as Sarasota County.

Slater, a retired executive with Blue Cross Blue Shield, and John Horne, owner of Anna Maria Oyster Bar, will co-chair a newly formed Political Action Committee called Forward Manatee, to promote both taxes. Businessman Mac Carraway, owner of Carraway Consulting, will serve as vice chairman.

The trio believe strongly that the sales taxes, although separate, must be lobbied for collectively.

“We didn’t want to be perceived as competing for the same dollar,” Slater said.

FORWARD THINKING

As East County resident Cori Huffman hunted through clothes at the Ranch Lake Plaza Goodwill location, she admitted she doesn’t know much about the proposed half-cent sales taxes. She isn’t ready to vote yes, but that doesn’t mean she will vote no.

“I’d have to see all the information laid out,” Huffman said. “What it’s being spent on would determine my vote.”

Huffman and undecided voters like her are Forward Manatee’s target audience.

Forward Manatee is working with a consultant to determine best practices and strategies for moving forward. 

But, Slater, Horne and Carraway already are busy forming a 10- to 12-member executive committee to advise them, following up on a list of 150 key people they hope to list as supporters and finding a dozen or so individuals who will serve as the speakers bureau. Their job will be to speak to as many civic and other groups as they can.

In an ideal scenario, there would be one speaker for the school board and one for Manatee County, although all speakers will be cross-trained to answer questions in case they cannot attend functions in pairs.

The group will use the next month to get organized, solicit volunteers and lay a foundation on which to build. 

Then, sometime in September, the PAC likely will launch full-fledged efforts to promote both taxes in time for the referendum in November.

CHALLENGES

Forward Manatee’s challenges primarily are two-fold. First, the PAC must debunk beliefs that government is wasteful and prove to the public that both Manatee County and the Manatee County School District are using resources efficiently.

Slater came to that conclusion after serving on Manatee County’s Citizens Financial Structure Advisory Board. The argument for Manatee County is that revenues are still down 18% compared with 2007 figures, the workforce has been cut by 300 positions even though the population has grown by more than 50,000 in the last decade. The only thing left to cut, Slater said, is services.

Impact fees can only be used for new projects, not for maintaining existing infrastructure. So, they could pay for a new pool, but not for staffing it, for example.

“We’ve had five, 10, 15 years’ worth of growth,” Slater said. “Where’s the money to maintain that old growth?”

Horne chimed in: “That’s where this money comes in to play.”

Individuals like Ed Goff, who runs an online political forum ourmanatee.com, dislike the taxes and argue the county and school board both could have collected more impact fees in the past and could be collecting more now. 

“We feel there has been very strong influence from an interest group, generally known as developers,” Goff said.

That argument applies to the school board, as well, but it has another challenge. 

“We don’t trust the school district because they misued the sales tax money and we think they’ll do it again,” Goff said. 

Even Manatee County commissioners balked at the idea of joining efforts to promote the taxes with the school district, because of its perceived transparency issues and other concerns stemming from accounting errors in 2011 that left the district $3.4 million short and in jeopardy of being overtaken by the state. And this summer, the state released grades that dropped Manatee County Schools from a B to a C.

The school district says the 2008 recession, class size amendment adoption and other changes directly impacted the sales tax and its promise on how to spend it.

PAC leaders say the school district is headed in the right direction.

“You can’t gauge the future on the past,” Horne said. “You’ve got to move forward. We can’t let our children suffer.”

Plus, the needs for both the county and the school district are similar. Both need revenue to repair infrastructure and build new facilities that otherwise would be shouldered by property tax revenues alone.

The school district has not yet released a specific list of projects for which it would use the sales tax dollars, but said it would use it toward renovations, new schools, increased safety, tehcnology, property aquisition and replacement of equipment.

 Manatee County’s proposal divides the money between transportations, parks and public safety. 

Rex Jensen, CEO of Lakewood Ranch developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, advocated for the first half-cent sales tax for the Manatee County School District 15 years ago, and believes it should be renewed. Although not enough oversight was in place, that should not impede passage of the tax renewal.

“The place to deal with that is the ballot box. The schools need a funding source,” he said.

Manatee County commissioners voted Aug. 9 to create a Citizens Oversight Committee to ensure dollars are being spent as promised and to provide a process for modifying the list of projects to be funded.

Jensen said the establishment of such a committee will be critical for ensuring the public that sales tax revenues are spent as they should.

Forward Manatee leaders agree.

“We believe we’re on the right track,” Slater said. “People have a right to vote yes or no.”