School sales tax panel probes Volusia spending history
By Linda Trimblelinda.trimble@news-jrnl.com
A committee got off to a quick start Monday on its job of looking at Volusia schools' need to extend its current half-cent sales tax.
DAYTONA BEACH — A committee got off to a quick start Monday on its job of looking at Volusia schools' need to extend its current half-cent sales tax by peppering school district staff with questions about spending history.
The 29-member committee is charged with developing a list by December of how the sales tax money would be spent if voters agree to extend it in November 2014. The School Board will make the final call, but Superintendent Margaret Smith told the committee at its first meeting Monday the project list is expected to focus on facilities; safety and security; and transportation and technology.
"This extension is very necesssary in order to continue to meet our capital needs," Smith said, noting that reductions in state funding, a cutback in the property tax rate the School Board can charge for capital projects and a shrinking tax roll during the Great Recession has limited revenue in that area.
The current sales tax — approved by voters in 2001 — will expire in December 2016. It has raised more than $343 million toward a $712 million building program that included eight new schools, replacements of eight others, renovations/additions at a dozen more, two alternative education centers and miscellaneous other projects that touched just about every area of Volusia County.
Several members of the Project Oversight Committee — a group of community representatives that kept watch on sales tax spending and construction projects from the beginning — reported Monday on its work.
One of them, David Bridgeman, said it would be important to have a similar committee in place if voters approve a sales tax extension next year. "I think that's crucial to making the community understand their dollars are being used wisely," he said. The School Board has already committed to continuing the oversight committee if the sales tax is extended.
An overview of what was built with the current sales tax, remaining debt for bonds and certificates of participation used to jump-start the building program and the scope of school district operations related to facilities and transportation also was presented Monday.
Committee members had plenty of questions for senior staff members who presented that information, quizzing them on what had been done in recent years to cut costs and questioning if other actions, such as leasing rather than buying buses, might save more money.
"This is a gigantic operation; it's very complex," said Justin Kennedy of Edgewater, who has five children in Volusia schools. "There's no way we can absorb what you do every day."
Kennedy and other members of the Citizens' Capital Needs Committee said school district staff needs to develop an easily understood factual explanation of school district spending and capital needs without overwhelming voters with unnecessary numbers.
"This has to be sold in a voting booth; that's how short and simple it has to be," said Sandy Burke Bishop, executive director of the Volusia Building Industry Association, who represented that group at Monday's meeting.
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