The District School Board of Nassau County is proposing a tax levy of $109 million, an increase of $30 million over last year according to a legal notice published last Wednesday.
The notice says a meeting to set the millage rate is today, July 31, 2023, at 6:30 p.m. in the boardroom at the School Board office at 1201 Atlantic Ave., Fernandina Beach, and is open to the public.
According to the notice, the proposed operating budget expenditures of the district are 22.6% more than last year.
Last November, voters approved a 1 mill bond issue for four years to go toward teachers’ salaries.
The district’s 2022-23 budget cited a 10.6% operating expense increase over the previous year.
The proposed millage rate for 2023-24 is 6.46 mills per $1,000 of property valuation. The rate this year is 5.880 mills.
There is no doubt our schools usually need more funding, but this increase needs scrutiny to ensure the funds are going where we want it. I would like to see more arts, music, and science programs. Also, with recent state legislation allowing the siphoning off of public school funding to private, even religious, schools, taxpayers should be doubly wary of where their money is going.
Seriously?!?! I absolutely am disgusted with the poor management of this school board under Dr. Burns. The purchase of the 10 acres on A1A for $3 million when it could have been purchased for MUCH less prior to the property “boom” is one reason. The 1 mil increase last year when taxes were ALREADY increasing due to everyone’s property value’s being inflated was enough to put a lot of people in the hurt locker. NOW THIS?!?! These people need to STOP and REMEMBER WE ARE A WORKING CLASS COUNTY. I have lived here my whole life. Stop trying to GENTRIFY US out of our homes with taxes and insurance!!!!
What is the actual, line-by-line break down of the “operating expenses” for our district? Who is in charge of implementing cost control measures for the budget? How is it there has been no previous warning about all of this when asking for the 1 mil for salaries back in November? Surely this comes as no surprise to the board. How are developer impact fees charged and directed? Lots of questions…
In Miami-Dade as well as other counties in the state, large developers such as Wildlight are required to get approval from the county school board that there is accomdation enough to meet the needs of new students added to the current school system. If not adequate, the developer is required to contribute to the school system to accommodate new students. If this was made a requirement in Nassau County, the developer of Wildlight would have to contribute rather than current taxpayers shouldering the burden. Why isn’t this a requirement in Nassau County, and why aren’t our Commissioners working on behalf of we, the current taxpayers, of Nassau County? Nina West, Fernandina Beach
That is already a requirement if I understand correctly. The developer has to give “X” amount of dollars to the school board if there is not capacity. Any new schools have to be approved by the state.
It may be time to recall the Superintendent.
The school district is like a special store that only talks about how much their teaching costs and not how much their buildings cost. They use something called “FTE” to do this. Imagine if you bought a pizza and had to pay for the pizza and also pay extra for where you ate it. You’d find that pretty funny, right? When we add up how much it costs to teach and also to have school buildings, the money needed for each student in Nassau County is over $15,000. This got higher because they increased taxes. Just think, if we take all the money the school gets (more than $200 million) and share it among the students (13,000), you’ll see how much it is for each. The school board can tell you the exact numbers if you ask them. But this amount is more than what most private schools in Florida charge. https://www.privateschoolreview.com/tuition-stats/florida The average cost for private schools is much less, around $10,003 for all grades, even less for elementary and middle schools. Our public schools ask for fifty percent more money. There’s a lot of extra spending in the school system, especially at the top, which wouldn’t be okay in regular businesses. This makes taxpayers unhappy. We want the school system to be more open about what they do with the money. Remember when there was only one postal service and no fast deliveries? When other companies like UPS and FedEx could also deliver, things got better. We need the same for schools, so they work better too. Open up the books and stop playing games. Spread the word!
Absolutely … and that competition is called charter or private schools. The loudest voices opposing giving any money to parents for charter/private schools are those with a vested interest in keeping all the kids captive in their public school system. They are already claiming that the public school overall costs are increasing because of the State now providing some funding to parents of kids opting out of their system. Beyond ridiculous … another example of why people want to escape this stupidity. Nassau county schools do seem to be doing a decent job of educating and avoiding the indoctrination seen all over the country … I’m not entirely sure why their costs have increased so much … they haven’t done a good job of explaining that.