School Board makes small reduction in property tax rates

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a July 24 Special Meeting, the School Board of Alachua County approved its tentative budget and millage rates for FY2026, with a small reduction in property tax rates.

The only agenda item on the budget was to approve the advertisement of the 2025-2026 Preliminary Budget and Millage Rates, and financial consultant Judy Marte, who retired a year early from Broward County Schools in June 2024, said, “Preliminary is a very good word to be used this evening. This ad is the first step in what will be a journey to work through the adoption of the budget with the board. Next week, on July 31, the administration will be asking the board to adopt a tentative budget.” The final budget will be adopted on September 9. 

Presentation contained many errors

Marte apologized to the board for errors in the presentation attached to the agenda: “That is not usually the type of work I do, so I want to apologize for that, and I want to correct the mistakes on the record.”

On the slide above, Marte said, the second and third columns “do not add.” She said the number 5.5538 should be replaced with 6.237; the number 5.5778 should be replaced with 6.241. She said these numbers “do not impact your ad, but the presentation has a deficit that I’m going to one more time apologize for.”

Adding the columns on that slide actually produces 6.227 for the second column and 6.251 for the third column. The second row of the second column has a typographical error and should be .748, not .0748. The rate of 6.251 is 0.39% higher than the corrected rolled-back rate of 6.227 and 0.16% lower than last year’s rate.

Marte explained that the rolled-back rate is the millage rate that produces the same revenue as the previous fiscal year, exclusive of new construction. 

The millage rate is calculated from several factors, all of which will stay the same from last year (see the slide above) except the Required Local Effort that is set by the legislature, which is 0.01 mills less than last year.

Marte said the slide above is correct, “except for the rounding in the last column.” The third row is the sum of the first two rows, so -0.01 is the total difference.

Looking ahead to compare the total tax levy on slides 11 and 14 (below), Marte said the bottom number on slide 11 is 96% of the amount on slide 14 because the state requires that only 96% of the levy can be used in the budget.

Marte said the property tax increase for a homesteaded residential property, given the maximum increase this year of 2.9% tied to CPI, would be $29.97. Commercial properties and non-homesteaded properties will see increases related to their increases in taxable value over last year.

Proposed budget is lower than last year

The proposed total budget is $585,136,199, a 4.5% reduction from the 2024-2025 adopted budget of $612,765,789.64; the proposed General Fund budget is $345,897,010, 1.5% more than the 2024-2025 General Fund budget of $340,794,311.21

Slide 15 of the presentation (the proposed budget for publication in the newspaper) erroneously states that the 2025-2026 budget is 3.8% higher than the previous year’s, and Marte said, “We’re working with our newspapers to make sure they get the corrections; there was a question in validating the 3.8% at the top… I’ve proven all the other numbers, and I’m certain that those are correct.”

Certain: “Our expenditures are significantly greater than our estimated revenue, right? So we already are starting out behind the eight ball.”

Vice Chair Tina Certain, who was chairing the meeting while Chair Sarah Rockwell attended remotely, said she had a few comments. She said this is the district’s first year post-ESSER and the second year that universal vouchers have affected all school districts in Florida. She pointed out that the legislature reduced the Required Local Effort, “which is a little counterintuitive.” She said the district doesn’t know how much the freezing of federal funds will affect revenue, costs are going up, and the Florida Retirement System contributions have gone up. 

Certain asked Superintendent Kamela Patton whether a decision had been made on health insurance rates for employees, and Patton said the district’s consultant recommended raising rates by 7.35% for both employees and the district, but the union wanted no increase; Patton said the district offered a 3.75% increase, but the votes of the Health Insurance Committee were tied, so no decision was made. She said the consultant will bring the issue to the School Board.

Certain pointed out that according to Slide 15 (which is blurry in the presentation linked above and would not be readable if reproduced here), the total General Fund revenue from federal, state, and local sources is just $279 million of the $345 million General Fund budget; the rest comes from transfers from capital funds ($21 million) and “Fund Balances/Net Assets” ($45 million).

Certain continued, “Our expenditures are significantly greater than our estimated revenue, right? So we already are starting out behind the eight ball… I haven’t felt like we’ve cut enough to be able to get past these deficits… This is causing us to have to take money out of fund balance, and this also means that we’re also using a higher amount of the local capital funds, the 1.5 Mill, to shore up our budget. I mean, it’s allowable by state statute, but everything you’re allowed to do is not necessarily good, in my view… When we say that we have to cut or we have to reduce costs, this is why… It’s going to be a slim budget year.”

Marte apologized that the proposed budget slide (slide 15) could not be read clearly and said there are no fund balance transfers in the proposed budget: “Fund balance in the revenue and in the expenditures is the same. This budget ad does not recommend drawing down fund balance.”

Superintendent will present her budget cuts on July 31

Marte said, however, that Certain was correct that the budget relies “on a larger transfer from capital than in previous years.” She said the reductions in projected enrollment, increased health insurance costs, and increases for fuel and utilities are already built into the proposed budget. She concluded, “The Superintendent will show in her budget presentation that she made significant reductions that will be codified very clearly for you and summarized to help us work through that process.”

Vu: “We don’t decide this tax rate. The state sets it for us.”

Member Thomas Vu said he wanted to emphasize that “We don’t decide this tax rate. The state sets it for us… We still don’t have final budget numbers for the last school year that is already over — the state has not sent those to us — and so that is what we’re dealing with right now. Also, the federal government has frozen a lot of funds, through which they have no legal mechanism to do so, but have done so anyway, which has tied our hands on a lot of things, and we are left with the choices of either cutting those services or finding other ways to fund them, even though we are legally obligated to receive those funds. And so that’s a little bit of kind of the financial chaos that was not at all of our own making, but by state and national actors.”

Public input

During public input, Kim Cook and Crystal Tessman both spoke for the union, asking the board to hold health insurance rates flat and budget for a “dignified” raise for employees in the upcoming year.

After public input, Rockwell said she also wanted to emphasize that “our millage rate is given to us by the state, and we vote to approve it.” She pointed out that although the TRIM notices will say there is a tax increase because the district is projected to raise more revenue next year due to increased property values, the rate is actually less than last year’s. 

Member Janine Plavac asked Patton how she is managing the programs that rely on frozen federal funds, and Patton said, “We’re only spending any of the funds that are rolled over and not anything that has to dip into our General Fund.”

Motion and vote

Although the motion and second could not be heard on the video of the meeting, according to the minutes posted by the district, Vu made the motion to approve advertising the preliminary budget and millage rates, and Plavac seconded the motion. The motion passed, 5-0.