The Sarasota County School Board took up a discussion on a way to save the district money. The discussion died due to three school board members: Caroline Zucker, Jane Goodwin and Shirley Brown. This issue was about the costs associated with holding a tax increase referendum during an off year rather than during the November general election cycle. Here are some facts about the March tax increase referendum:

• The tax increase referendum costs the School District $324,827.84 every four years. Five of these referendums have taken place costing approximately $1,714,139 to date.
• Voter turnout is 16.76% during March referendums versus over 75% during a General Election.
• The District March referendum suppresses the vote.
• The Sarasota County School Board receives over 58% of all property taxes in the county.

The issue:

When the Sarasota County School Board has a “discussion” about issues, they get the feel for how everyone votes and then if there’s not a majority, they don’t schedule a public vote on it because they assume it’ll lose.

They only bring up winning votes instead of forcing votes and putting people on record. The threat of being on record and the accountability that comes from that could actually sway votes during a regularly scheduled School Board meeting. It would also allow for public input on this and many other issues that never make it out of these “discussions.” Discussions appear to be designed to keep important items off of the public meetings agenda.

This is a huge problem and amounts to the abuse of Sarasota County taxpayers, parents and voters.

Watch the video of the discussion held on August 17th, 2015:

During the discussion School Board (SB) Member Bridget Ziegler pushed to have the discussion about moving the Referendum to the General Election. SB Member Frank Kovach aggressively supported moving it as well.

Two of the three SB Members who opposed the move said that it would still pass in November. Caroline Zucker said it would pass in November (at 12:40) but opposed moving and saving money. Shirley Brown also said it would pass in November (at: 10:33 & 12:33) but opposed moving and saving money. Jane Goodwin did NOT support moving it.

Question: So why not save the money and hold the referendum in November?

There is no cost to the School District and taxpayers to add the tax increase referendum to the General Election unless it appears as a stand alone item on an extra sheet of paper, then the cost is only for the paper that is printed on for that one page, a minimal cost.

Those opposed argued that moving the tax increase referendum causes confusion for voters if they vote against referendum and then it’s still continuing from a previous vote. However, SB Member Kovach noted that the Sarasota County Commission did this and it caused no voter confusion.

The opposing SB members worried about the ballot getting crowded and being missed.  See: Too much on ballot SB Member Zucker at 12:40 in the above video. However, SB Member Ziegler rips that apart by referencing voter turnout for the items at the ballot during a presidential general being at 50%+ rather than under 17%. It is also easy to vote via absentee ballot and during the early voting period.

Question: Why should the SB make it more difficult to vote? People aren’t used to voting in March.

Why are Zucker, Brown and  Goodwin so concerned with the campaign to push for supporting the tax increase referendum rather than what’s best for taxpayers? Ziegler notes how bottom of the ballot items during a general election are three times higher than the tax increase referendum turnout. That means more voter engagement, not less.

SB Members have tried to paint first term SB Member Bridget Ziegler as a rookie. Maybe it’s good to have a fresh perspective to understand how much money this is costing the district. Maybe Ziegler is telling the truth and is being silenced at the expense of Sarasota County taxpayers?

Currently the tax referendum happens and is pitched as a rush and then when it’s passed there’s a rush on how to spend the money. It’s easy to spend money when it is not yours on off season tax increase referendums rather than on public school children. Especially when most of that money is used not to improve the classroom.

As SB Member Kovach pointed out the scheduling of the tax increase referendum is “more about victory versus the will of the people.”

Zucker is up for reelection. Perhaps she, Goodwin and Brown need to explain their anti-voter and anti-taxpayer positions?