Manatee County citizens should support school property tax referendum

I, along with probably most property owners in Manatee County, do not want to pay any more taxes than are necessary. However, the renewal of the 1 mill school property tax is necessary.

Unfortunately, the current state of the world requires significant safety and security measures at our schools. Some of these measures are required by state law — but those are the minimums.

The leaders of the Manatee County school system know that more than the state required minimums are necessary to keep our schools secure. For instance, in the 2023-2024 school year, three known loaded guns (there were probably more – these are just the ones we located) were found on our school campuses. That situation is unacceptable, so the school system decided to put Evolve artificial intelligence weapon detection systems at all of our high schools and randomly at our middle schools.

With the extra security personnel needed to operate these systems, along with other security measures, annual security costs are millions of dollars per year, and the annual state allocation for safety and security covers only a small percentage of the county’s needs in this area.

So far this year, there have been no guns found on campus, and the system has detected non-firearm related weapons (such as blades and other sharp objects) that were prevented from entering our school campuses. All students entering schools where this equipment is deployed are required to pass through the detection systems. These systems are also used for security at school system major sporting events.

The Florida Constitution also has minimum class size requirements. These maximum class size requirements drive a certain number of teachers and support personnel that is legally required by state law. Employee pay and benefits make up the majority of the expenditures from the school system general operating fund (funds used on an annual basis to operate the school system). So, while the school system did eliminate a few hundred positions for the 2024-2025 school year as a cost saving measure, the ability to simply cut jobs to reduce expenditures is very limited.

Some constituents have told me that the school board should “cut administrative staff” to reduce costs. For the 2024-2025 school year, several administrative positions were eliminated throughout the school system, and those include reducing the superintendent’s personal staff from three to two positions.

The school system has approximately 6,250 employees (by far the largest employer in the county), 43,000 students, has 51 schools and many other facilities that it must operate and maintain (to include our transportation system), and has a plethora of laws and Florida Department of Education rules that it must follow.

In conjunction with the superintendent, your school board has diligently tried to limit the growth of upper-level administrative staff to minimize bureaucratic expenses.

Florida does provide a significant amount of money to the school system every year for its operations, although most of this money is put into “buckets” that, more often than not, cannot be legally poured into one another. However, the money provided by the state is not enough to fund all of the state’s requirements (unfunded/partially funded mandates for the 2024-2025 school year are about $42 million) and to provide competitive pay and benefits for our employees.

Pinellas and Sarasota counties have school millage property tax levies, and some of those funds are used for employee pay and benefits. The reality is that without the one mil property tax, Manatee County would lose many of its best and brightest employees to surrounding counties, to include our best teachers and principals — the backbone of the school system.

Finally, I have observed firsthand that millage money used for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) is making a “higher quality” education for our students. These funds allow for the purchase of advanced classroom technology, such as robotics and 3-D printers, and for adequate provisioning of the visual and performing arts in our schools. Consequently, our students are participating in state and national STEAM competitions, often with winning results.

The total school tax millage for the last six school years has steadily decreased, from 7.331 total mils in the 2018-2019 school year to 6.299 mils in the 2024-2025 school year — a total rate decrease of 14% over the last six years. I know that the amount of taxes paid, due to rising property values, goes up every year. But school tax rates have been steadily decreasing for many years. Manatee County has more “A” rated schools than ever before, with improving academic test scores across a wide variety of academic areas.

As a property owner in Manatee County, I pay property taxes. I do not have children or family members in the school system, but I know that the millage is necessary for a competitive, safe and high-quality school system in Manatee County.

Please join me in voting “yes” on the renewal of the 1 mill school property tax. This measure will show up as “Amendment 7” on your ballot.

–Rich Tatem, Manatee County School Board member, District 5