TAMPA, Fla. — The vote on a new property tax meant to provide a financial boost to Hillsborough County Schools is too close to call, unofficial results show.
Data from the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections website show NO leading YES by 619 votes — 110,961 votes to 110,342 votes.
Because of the close margin, a machine recount is planned for the coming days, Superindentent Addison Davis said on Wednesday. There are still provisional ballots that have not yet been counted.
"When you look at what we have to face as we’re facing our national crisis related to keeping our best and our brightest in front of our children, last night, you know, was openly a setback," Davis said in an update.
The one-mil referendum is positioned to generate about $146 million annually for schools in the county, largely targeted toward increasing salaries for teachers and staff. It's also meant also expand art, music, physical education and workforce education programs.
Hillsborough County Superintendent Addison Davis said if the new property tax is not passed, then the school district will continue to expand the issue of the teacher shortage within the county's public schools.
"We're facing a national crisis related to being able to fill [teaching] positions every single day, but from our school district perspective, we will continue to be relentless in our efforts to be able to be champions for children," Davis said.
Public schools will eventually have to make certain decisions to address the teacher shortage issue, but the county currently has more questions than answers on that topic, especially if the referendum does not get passed, according to Davis.
"What this does for us is it sets us back openly, but it gets to a point where we got to make some continued hard decisions," he said. "We have to answer, 'what can we do to make certain that we address the near 600 instructional vacancies that we currently have?' And how do we work collectively in every one of our schools, in an effort to make certain that children have continued stability every day?"
Public schools in Hillsborough County received money from additional tax revenue as property values have gone up more than 28% in Hillsborough County year-over-year.
The county property appraiser says locally Hillsborough County Schools will get more than $58 million in additional tax revenue this year. That's on top of the tax revenue coming from the state.
However, with the referendum, all of the money generated will only stay in the county.
The property tax demands an additional dollar for every $1,000 of real estate value for people who live in Hillsborough County. In other words, if a home is assessed at $200,000, the property owner pays $200 after Florida's Homestead Exemption is applied.