A BAD SWAP FOR FLORIDA SCHOOL-TAX PLAN COULD ENDANGER STATE TREASURY
Miami Herald, The (FL) - Friday, January 14, 2000
Author: Herald Staff
Why are so many Florida schools still overcrowded - with little hope of imminent relief - more than two years after a legislative special session approved spending $2.9 billion over a five-year period for school construction? Wasn't that infusion of state aid, coming atop the preceding decade's major local school -bond issues, supposed to solve the school -overcrowding problem?
That's what lots of parents and taxpayers may wonder upon hearing that Florida's SchoolConstruction Finance Commission may ask the Legislature to give local school districts new taxing authority. The 15-member panel seems ready to urge lawmakers to let local schoolboards levy a new penny sales tax for school construction - without a referendum. Boards that do so would be required to rescind the 2 mills of property taxes now authorized for new building. That trade would lift some of the school -tax burden off commercial property and transfer it to consumers.
In addition, another portion of the panel's plan would ask lawmakers to find a source of state funds to replace the impact fees that 15 Florida school districts exact from developers.
Is more money needed for school construction? Absolutely; Florida's dirty little secret is that when the 1997 Legislature, at the behest of then-Gov. Lawton Chiles, finally agreed to put up the $2.9 billion, the statewide need was closer to $11 billion.
So even then it was clear that much of the rest of the school-crowding problem must be solved by the local districts. The commission's plan is a misguided attempt to help the districts do so.
The plan looks good only if you consider its impact on schools' needs. In 1999 it could have generated a welcome $607 million more for school construction statewide - including $71.2 million in Miami-Dade and $56.7 million in Broward - if all 67 districts had swapped the 2 mills for a 1-cent hike in the sales tax and the state had replaced the $71.4 million in lost impact-fee revenue.
Yet given Florida's eroding tax base, the Legislature can ill afford to focus on this need to the exclusion others. Letting school boards, without a referendum, grab a penny of the state's finite taxing capacity - a move not easily reversed - precludes it from being put to use to solve other serious concerns, such as transportation, health care or human services.
So the 2-mill levy and impact fees ought to stay put. Counties where school boards find these sources inadequate already have the authority to levy a sales-tax surcharge for infrastructure if voters approve - and 11 districts already have done so.
Yet for the state to endanger a portion of its future sales-tax capacity in order to give school boards an easy way out of a crisis that school districts themselves have largely mishandled would be unwise.
That's what lots of parents and taxpayers may wonder upon hearing that Florida's SchoolConstruction Finance Commission may ask the Legislature to give local school districts new taxing authority. The 15-member panel seems ready to urge lawmakers to let local schoolboards levy a new penny sales tax for school construction - without a referendum. Boards that do so would be required to rescind the 2 mills of property taxes now authorized for new building. That trade would lift some of the school -tax burden off commercial property and transfer it to consumers.
In addition, another portion of the panel's plan would ask lawmakers to find a source of state funds to replace the impact fees that 15 Florida school districts exact from developers.
Is more money needed for school construction? Absolutely; Florida's dirty little secret is that when the 1997 Legislature, at the behest of then-Gov. Lawton Chiles, finally agreed to put up the $2.9 billion, the statewide need was closer to $11 billion.
So even then it was clear that much of the rest of the school-crowding problem must be solved by the local districts. The commission's plan is a misguided attempt to help the districts do so.
The plan looks good only if you consider its impact on schools' needs. In 1999 it could have generated a welcome $607 million more for school construction statewide - including $71.2 million in Miami-Dade and $56.7 million in Broward - if all 67 districts had swapped the 2 mills for a 1-cent hike in the sales tax and the state had replaced the $71.4 million in lost impact-fee revenue.
Yet given Florida's eroding tax base, the Legislature can ill afford to focus on this need to the exclusion others. Letting school boards, without a referendum, grab a penny of the state's finite taxing capacity - a move not easily reversed - precludes it from being put to use to solve other serious concerns, such as transportation, health care or human services.
So the 2-mill levy and impact fees ought to stay put. Counties where school boards find these sources inadequate already have the authority to levy a sales-tax surcharge for infrastructure if voters approve - and 11 districts already have done so.
Yet for the state to endanger a portion of its future sales-tax capacity in order to give school boards an easy way out of a crisis that school districts themselves have largely mishandled would be unwise.
Memo: OPINION
Edition: Final
Section: Editorial
Page: 6B
Record Number: 0001150143
Copyright (c) 2000 The Miami Herald
Section: Editorial
Page: 6B
Record Number: 0001150143
Copyright (c) 2000 The Miami Herald
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