With a unanimous vote, the Monroe County School Board approved a proposed 2022-2023 (Fiscal Year 2023) budget at its Sept. 6 meeting at Marathon High School.
Though the budget’s final total millage rate of 2.962 is the district’s lowest since 2008, the 2022-2023 budget will add more than $19 million in revenue, buoyed by skyrocketing property values and a county tax roll north of $44.5 billion for the 2022 tax year.
In response to concern from board members at their last meeting that the increased revenues did not come with increased funds for raises for teachers and other staff, director of finance Beverly Anders indicated that the final proposed budget includes $5 million in the general fund earmarked for teacher raises in 2023-24. The $5 million was made possible by additional federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds received by the district to cover previously budgeted items such as summer school and curriculum expenses.
“This would allow us to be able to give significant raises to our teachers to start them on the progression of getting them to a wage that will allow them to live in the county,” said Anders. “It’s my hope that we can add another $2 million to those $5 million and come up with $7 million at the end of the day.”
Anders fielded questions from the board as to how the district’s advertised spending per dollar – reported as 64 cents per dollar for student instruction – could be altered by salaries paid to teachers on special assignment outside of their schools or by the aforementioned general fund increases budgeted as instruction expenses.
“We can certainly look at how we classify (teachers on special assignment),” Anders answered, adding that while the earmarked $5 million in the final budget proposal would initially enter the general fund, it would still eventually go to pay salaries for instructional staff.
In other news:
- Patrick Lefere, executive director of operations and planning, delivered an update on the schematic design phase of Key West’s Tommy Roberts Memorial Stadium and Rex Weech Field renovation. With an estimated cost of $16,829,415 and estimated completion date of January 2024, Phase 1 of the project will include a rebuild of the stadium’s football bleachers, a multipurpose or visitor locker room, a football concession stand and restroom facility, a baseball press box and refurbishment of the stadium’s baseball bleachers. The football field and baseball outfield will receive new sod, and the project will add a portable concession trailer for the baseball side of the stadium.
- Along with input from teachers and administrators, classroom furniture supplier Virco Inc. delivered an extensive presentation on potential new classroom and media center furnishings as part of a proposed furniture refresh project for all three Monroe County high schools. Phase 1 of the proposal, a $1 million refresh of the furnishings in all three high school media centers, received board pushback.
“I don’t think it sends a good message in terms of environmental responsibility that the furniture that’s 15 years old that’s in perfectly fine shape, we’re just going to scrap to spend money that we got from the feds for COVID to create a lounge,” said board member Bobby Highsmith, referencing the ESSER funds used to purchase the furnishings.
“I am very sympathetic to everything he just said, but sending the money back is not going to make our students perform any better,” replied vice chair Andy Griffiths. “It came out of the collective country for a debt that we’re all going to collectively own, so I don’t want to shortchange our kids. … If it was just our money, I’d be right there with you.”
In a 3-1 vote with Highsmith as the lone nay, the board voted to move forward with the
media center phase of the furniture project.
