Polk County school district takes steps to move forward with tax referendum

BARTOW, Fla. — Polk County Public Schools is joining the list of districts in the Tampa Bay area requesting a tax referendum.

The district’s board unanimously approved tentative ballot language at their meeting last Tuesday that would levy an additional $1 million in ad valorem property taxes for four years, allocating 80% of that money to increase teachers’ salaries.

The president of the Polk Education Association says this is a long time coming, and she thinks the tipping point for the school board was seeing Hillsborough County voters approve that school referendum last year.

“As we continue to be defunded from Tallahassee from our own state government, districts have recognized that they’ve had to ask their communities to support strong, public schools,” said Stephanie Yocum, President of the PEA.

As a former teacher and parent, she says she wants the best educators in Polk County schools but says that currently, they can’t compete.

“Polk is so large,” Yocum said. “If you live anywhere on the perimeter of the county, we touch 10 other counties and most of the Bay area now — from Hernando, Pasco, Pinellas, all the way down to Sarasota — have a millage referendum, and yet we don’t.”

The Polk County School Board is taking steps to change that. At Tuesday’s meeting, the board voted unanimously, approving ballot language for the tax referendum, devoting 80% to salaries and 20% to school programs.

“I think that we’ve been working on this for a minute now, and so it’s finally nice to see it coming to fruition,” said Kay Fields, a Polk County School Board member.

Yocum thinks the community will also recognize the need and show its support.

“If we can pool our money together and decide what’s important to our community, and that we want strong public schools everybody kicking in a little bit to make that happen so that teachers and support staff can stay and live in their community, and teach in their communities, I think that is a good use of our taxpayer dollars,” she said.

The next step is a public meeting to finalize the ballot language — that’s on Sept. 9. Then, the board will vote to move this on to the county commission.

The goal is to get this on the ballot this November.