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School board votes to lower property tax bill

Wesley LeBlanc
Posted 7/25/18

FLEMING ISLAND – By the year 2038, Clay County is forecasted to have five new schools serving both junior high and elementary levels of education.

During the July 23 School Board Special …

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School board votes to lower property tax bill


Posted

FLEMING ISLAND – By the year 2038, Clay County is forecasted to have five new schools serving both junior high and elementary levels of education.

During the July 23 School Board Special Meeting, the school board was presented with the tentative budget of the 2018-19 school year, as well as a number of other tentative plans, such as schools that may or may not be built in Clay County.

Jim Fossa, the school district’s coordinator of planning, present the 2018-19 Educational Facilities Plan and briefly touched on the schools expected to be built from now until the year 2038. Fossa said the No. 1 priority is the Green Cove Springs area.

“So, here’s our proposed schools,” Fossa said. “If you’re looking at the next five years, you’ll see that we should be putting [a school] on County Road 315.”

The area Fossa referenced is near the site of the third phase of Magnolia West, which is currently in development. According to Fossa, due to the growth currently occurring in Magnolia West area, he projects that the property the board owns near there will be the site of the next Clay County school. It’s estimated to open as an elementary school for the 2022-23 school year with 862 students and will cost approximately $21.85 million. Another elementary school is set to open for the 2023-24 school year with another 862 students and will be built in the Two Creeks area in Middleburg and is projected to cost $22.39 million.

Tentatively, Fleming Island is set to receive a K-8 school that will open for the 2025-26 school year with an estimated 1,117 students for an estimated $32.91 million. A few years after that, Governor’s Park in Green Cove Springs will receive a $22.05 million elementary facility set to open for the 2028-29 school year that will serve 862 students. And finally, a junior high will be joining that elementary school in Governor’s Park for the 2031-32 school year. It will serve 1,117 students and cost $33.65 million.

Fossa said the new plan, which is required to be updated annually, is still tentative as the numbers are expected to change with each coming year.

Before all of that, though, Susan Legutko presented the 2018-19 tentative budget to the school board. Legutko began her presentation by explaining the 2018-19 proposed millage levy.

“Our proposed millage levy for [2018-19] will be 6.181,” Legutko said. “That represents our Required Local Effort of 3.933[mills], Basic Discretionary of .748 and Capital Outlay of 1.5. The 6.181 [mills]will generate approximately $73,742,129 to the district. The Required Local Effort, which is primarily our general fund dollars, will generate $46,922,471.”

The Basic Discretionary tentative millage levy will generate an estimated $8,923,979 and the Capital Outlay millage levy will generate approximately $17,895,679.

Last year, the millage levy was 6.438 and it generated $71,778,606. Despite being lower than last year’s, the 2018-19 millage levy will generate more money than last year’s did. The reason for this is increased property values in Clay County.

“With the increase in our [property values], we see an increase of $1.9 million [in funds raised by the millage levy this year over last year],” Legutko said.

After explaining this upcoming year’s expected millage levy, Legutko focused on the impact of the levy has on homeowners. If a taxpayer owns a home with a value of $125,000, the value will be $100,000 after the $25,000 homestead exemption. At the millage rate of last year, this homeowner would have experienced a tax rate of $643.80 – that number represents the school board’s portion of the tax. For the upcoming 2018-19 year, that same homeowner will pay in taxes $618.10, which is $25.70 less than last year. All of this assumes the homeowner’s value will stay the same, which is unlikely according to Legutko.

From here, Legutko moved on to the Florida Roll-Back Millage Rate.

“The bottom line is in order to generate the same tax bill you had last year, we would need to roll back our millage rate,” Legutko said. “In other words, we would need to have a tax reduction in order to generate the same values.”

Legutko presented an example to help break this down: Assume that a residence is valued at $125,000 with a $25,000 homestead exemption. If that is the case, the taxable value of that home in 2018 was $100,000. Now, assuming that the house’s combined property tax rate was $20 per every $1,000 in valuation, the property owner of this house would have had to pay $2,000 in taxes in 2017.

Using the same house, if its value was increased by $10,000, with the homestead exemption, what tax rate would the homeowner need to pay to maintain $2000 in taxes in 2018? That tax rate is the roll-back rate. This home, valued at $135,000 would have a taxable value of $110,000 after deducting the homestead exemption of $25,000. At the current rate, this house would generate $2,200 in taxes. The rollback rate is the rate that would get this number back down to $2000, which is what the number was in 2017. The tax rate would need to roll back to $18 per $1,000 in valuation to meet the $2,000 in taxes paid.

After roll-back rates, Legutko presented the number that everyone wanted to hear: the general fund’s fund balance, which functions much like a reserve fund. At the start of the 2018-19 school budget year, which began on July 1, the fund balance of the school board tentatively sat at $28,985,129. It’s tentative because the final numbers for the 2017-18 school year have yet to be audited, meaning they’re not finalized.

Because those numbers directly affect the 2018-19 school year numbers, everything so far for this year is simply an estimate, or rather, what’s expected. The total revenue the school district is expected to earn this year is $281,531,759. If this number remains true, the school board will have $310,516,888 total in funds available, which will pay for a number of expenditures the board faces such as employee salaries and benefits, materials and supplies, debt service and more.

She pointed the district’s debt service obligation payments for the 2018-19 school year is looking like $5,450,854. This is how much debt the school board plans to pay this year. By the 2031-32 school year, the board is estimating that number will drop significantly lower to $216,350.

Over the next few weeks, the school board will continue to meet to discuss this year’s budget.

On Sep. 6, the school board will host a public hearing to approve the final budget where it’s expected that the budget, in its entirety, is finalized.