Property Tax Hike To Fund For Charter And Traditional Schools

In the latest news from news-press.com, state-appointed education task force is suggesting increasing property taxes in the effort to make funding more reasonable between charter and traditional schools.


Statistics show that there is an increase in demand for traditional and charter schools. However, the property values have stayed low because of the recession. To meet the growing needs for these schools, the K-12 Public School Facility Funding Task Force will organize meeting this month to plan how to get more funding for all public schools.

The meeting would plan out how to get reliable source of money for charter schools since they do not get any property tax money. Moreover, the proposal would like to ask the school boards how to get a levy of an additional 50 cents per $1,000 in taxable property value. This would go for the building construction and maintenance. At the present time, it is capped at $1.50. The proposal seeks to mandate that 25 cents of that additional 50 cents will go to the charter schools. The co-founder of Orlando-based Fund Education Now, Kathleen Oropeza believes that the taxpayers should not be giving public education dollars to private for-profit organizations. Her group is an organization of parents that are working to ensure that the Florida legislators sufficiently fund school districts. Oropeza said that her group has no problem with “niche or mom-and-pop charters” like the United Cerebral Palsy or schools operated by public agencies like the City of Cape Coral. However, they have a problem with for-profit charters that are asking for public dollars.