Leon School Board OKs $662M budget for 2025, discusses recent campus safety incidents
Tuesday's Leon County School Board meeting featured a significant agenda item: the 2025 budget, which was unanimously approved.
The $662 million budget will be funded in part by a reduced tax rate, but because of rising property values, the new rate still amounts to a tax increase.
"This is not something we're just looking at and we're passing," board member Laurie Cox said. "We really have spent time on this and each of us have looked into this pretty thoroughly."
The current property tax rate is about $5.46 for every $1,000 of a property's value. The new tax rate is about $5.38, which is expected to generate about $146 million for the district.
The overall budget for the 2025 fiscal year is $662 million, or $4 million less than the total for 2024.
A day earlier at an agenda review meeting, Billy Epting, the district's assistant superintendent for business services, said the decrease from last year is because of a decline in enrollment. Over the last five years, the district has lost 2,578 students for various reasons, and when they go, so does the state funding covering their costs.
The state covers a number of costs for the district based on how many students are enrolled. For next year's budget, it is providing the district with $184 million, or $4.8 million less than this year.
Most of the budget will be spent on staffing, which will increase by $15 million to $201 million. The staffing plan covers salaries and school activities and gives insight into how much each school can expect based on enrollment.
Kathy Sanders, the district's chief financial officer, said the increase comes from covering the salaries of guidance counselors, interventionists, and additional safety and security monitors, all previously covered by federal COVID relief money that expires on Sept. 30.
Each board member gave a thumbs up to the spending plan during the agenda review, but not before board member Alva Smith warned that a dramatic step might need to be considered in the future involving raising the tax rate to improve teacher salaries.
"There are districts that are going after additional (dollars) for teacher salaries," she told colleagues. "It is definitely scary but it's just how aggressive and competitive it's gotten in our state."
Paying teachers with additional funding generated from a property tax referendum is not new in Florida, she added.
The Hillsborough Public School District recently introduced its own referendum, asking taxpayers to pay an additional dollar for every $1,000 of assessed property value. The tax referendum will be decided by voters on the November ballot. It needs 60% approval to pass.
There wasn't much reaction from board members on Smith's suggestion, but her colleague, Darryl Jones, suggested the topic of a potential teacher pay tax referendum should be discussed further in a future workshop.
Here are a few other highlights:
Recent safety incidents
LCS chief of safety and security Jimmy Williams and Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna spoke about the recent incidents of weapons being discovered on some school campuses.
"We want to stay in prevention and intervention mode," Williams said. He highlighted the impact of the district's anonymous tip applications in assisting the discovery of weapons at Rickards and Leon high schools during the first month of the school year.
On Monday, two Rickards High School students arrived at Leon High in a rideshare and were stopped and questioned by a school employee at the guard shack, who then alerted the school's resource officer. The students were searched and arrested after one was found with a stun gun.
"Job One is keeping our children and our employees safe," Hanna said.
More: Rickards High student found on campus with steak knife; metal detectors at Leon High
More: 'Non-students' intercepted at Leon High, one had stun gun, school district spokesman says
New & historic student school board member
Godby High School senior Tolulope Binitie is the latest addition to the school board and is making history as the first African American male student from Godby High to sit in the seat.
The 16-year-old has a 4.5 GPA and is a member of the National Honor Society, Key Club, and Florida A&M University's TRIO organization, which supports disadvantaged, first-generation students in their preparations for college.
He said the school year has "started off strong." Binitie is interested in art, tabletop games, baking and video games.
New policy: Discipline matrix
After months of review, the district's student discipline matrix was passed unanimously by the board.
The new policy is designed to give administrators across the district a baseline for disciplining students. Having the matrix codified into policy ensures it will be applied equally to all students, administrators say.
School Board member Marcus Nicolas worked alongside district staff to complete the matrix so it would align with the student code of conduct.
The policy tells administrators the consequences of specific offenses, including whether they should call in law enforcement or consult the district.
"I think it's absolutely wonderful," Nicolas said. "I know many of my board colleagues before I came here were looking for some sort of policy that addresses disciplinary progression." The policy is now in effect.
Alaijah Brown covers children & families for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at ABrown1@gannett.com . Follow her on Twitter/X: @AlaijahBrown3 .
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Leon School Board OKs budget, discusses campus safety incidents
