After some debate, the Indian River Board of Education signs off on an unchanged tax rate for next year.
At a meeting Wednesday, district CFO Christopher Parker presented board members with a slate of four options for their tax rate next year, ranging from no change to a modest increase and a modest decrease in property taxes. The district recommended an option that holds tax rates flat, while lowering the portion of the rate for debt service and adding in an offsetting state matching program to cover minor capital improvements.
Board members had their own ideas as well. Board President Mark Steele said he was torn between the district’s favored option and lowering the debt service rate and lowering taxes.
“That's what we've done in the past. Sometimes it wasn't a lot,” he said. “Taxpayers - they get $1.50, $2 dollars. It would be as high as maybe $6 or $7 dollars.”
But Steele also said he saw the value in pursuing the minor capital improvement matching funding, citing the district’s aging buildings.
"We have buildings getting ready to click on the century mark in age. That's probably something we probably desperately need to look at,” he said.
Board member Michelle Parsons questioned why the district wasn’t taking advantage of all of the state’s matching programs, including ones for reading and math programs.
“We fund them 40%, but the state matches us 60%, and they're really geared towards student education and reading and math,” she said. “And I feel like it's a great way for us to leverage additional funds.”
She suggested that, if the district was recommending reducing the portion of taxes going to debt service - something it can do by drawing on reserve funds - it could further reduce debt service and fund matching programs without raising taxes, perhaps also removing the minor capital improvement tax the district is recommending. Parker, however, was cautious about that path.
“Next year, if we have to then raise the debt service back up and go get enhanced minor [capital improvements funding], because at that point now there's a roof that is severely leaking or something that's really bad, if we can't get in front of it this year, then you're having to go back to the taxpayer for essentially double that amount,” he explained. “You're going to have to get the enhanced minor cap and raise that debt service back up twice the amount that, because you have dropped it this year.”
Besides, he argued, the district is already covering the things that are paid for by the state matching programs.
“We're going to hire the amount of reading teachers that we need to hire anyway. We're going to hire the amount of math teachers we need to hire anyway. This tax would just essentially alleviate some of the local funds,” he said.
Other board members, like Steele, were unconvinced about the value of state matching programs. He contended that, because the state money in those programs can only be used for specified purposes, and that ties the district’s hands.
“Do you want your grandkids or you want your kids in a classroom of 40, 45 kids?” he asked. “Because that's where it's going to be. So we have to have flexibility to spend money and plan according to the revenues that we have coming in and the expenditures we have going out. Match taxes limit that. They severely limit it.”
Still, Parsons seemed unconvinced.
“We would just have to do it one time, make it a little - and it's not very, but a little bit - painful, and then after that, it's sustainable,” she said. “And it's very specific toward student education. I love that part.”
Steele also argued that, with a referendum planned for next January, an additional tax increase in advance of the vote would sour voters. The district pursued a referendum in 2025, but it failed 53%-47%. That led to an exchange with Parsons.
“I guarantee you, Michelle, if we put this 30-some dollar match tax out, we are going to be fried by our communities,” Steele said.
“I don't think that's true,” Parsons replied.
“I think we'll be fried,” Steele repeated.
“I think if you tell them our students are struggling, if we tell them the only reason why we're spending these taxes, one, we're leveraging additional funding from the state and we're using it directly for student education,” Parsons retorted.
Parker, the district’s CFO, offered a compromise - pass the district’s preferred option this year, and look at adding more match taxes in future years.
“Depending on what we look like next year, maybe there'll be the opportunity to say, if there's a debt service…, or if we do pass the referendum, then we could say there might be another opportunity to add one or two more without affecting the taxpayer at that point,” he suggested.
That idea seemed to assuage Parsons’s concerns, and she called it a “reasonable compromise.”
Board members voted 8-1 to approve the district’s preferred tax rate plan. Board member Gerald Peden, who remained quiet for most of the discussion, was the lone no vote.
