PANAMA CITY — Bay District School Board members unanimously voted to increase millage rates to fund facility maintenance and repairs during their final budget meeting Tuesday evening.
In a 5-0 vote, the board agreed to increase property taxes allocated to public schools in Bay County from last year’s millage rate of 6.761 to 6.889 for the 2014-2015 fiscal year. A mill is equal to $1 for every $1,000 of taxable value; and the .128 increase roughly translates to a little more than a dollar a month for a home worth $100,000, which would go a long way toward repairing decaying facilities across the district, according to Superintendent Bill Husfelt.
The tax hike will increase revenue by about $1.4 million next fiscal year.
“I feel like we’re being fair and equitable to taxpayers,” Husfelt told the board before their vote, stressing the increased revenue would not cover every need in the district. “This is still premised on no hurricanes and no major storms.”
No one from the public appeared to air dissent or approval for the increase.
Chairman Jerry Register raised concerns that citizens would call foul on the board for endorsing a half-cent sales tax in 2010 and then approving Tuesday’s tax hike.
“I know someone will tell me tomorrow that we asked them to vote for that and then raised the millage anyway,” Register said. “No matter how little we went up.”
But Husfelt argued the half-cent sales tax, as it was written, is off the table for repairs needed in some Panama City Beach schools’ facilities.
“The beach is close to crisis mode,” he said. “I don’t think it is fair to those facilities to not provide paint or repairs.”
Half-cent sales tax revenue cannot be used for capital improvement maintenance and repairs; it must be spent acquiring equipment and technology, renovation of older schools, construction of additional classrooms at existing schools, construction of new schools and retirement of related debt.
The fund has completed $57 million in school projects, including $30 million for smartboards in all core academic classrooms.
Husfelt said the district may have written itself into a corner by limiting what the half-cent revenue could be spent on, but Bay District Schools would remain the eighth least taxing school district in the state at the approved millage rate of 6.889.