JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A battle appears to be brewing between the school board and city council in Duval County.<\/p>\n
It comes after the council finance committee deferred a request by the school board to place a referendum on the November ballot that would extend an extra property tax meant to fund teacher pay, school security and arts and athletics programming.<\/p>\n
The Duval School Board wants to ask voters to green-light the extension of a 1 mill property tax that provides more than $100 million in annual funding to the district.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Voters approved the temporary increase in 2022, and it\u2019s set to expire next year if it\u2019s not extended.<\/p>\n Board Member Melody Bolduc (District 7) argued the district can\u2019t afford to lose the revenue if it wants to stay competitive.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need our teachers and we need to demonstrate respect and honor for them. We need to show that we appreciate them and this is how you do it,\u201d Bolduc said.<\/p>\n To be placed on the ballot, the referendum needs to be approved by the Jacksonville City Council, but given the push to cut property taxes at the state level, it\u2019s being met with hesitation.<\/p>\n Councilmember Raul Arias (R-District 11) was one of the members who voted to defer the referendum when it came before the Finance Committee Tuesday.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cThis is literally extending a rate property tax increase. This is a large level foe that I think that we should not rush into,\u201d Arias said.<\/p>\n But the council may not have a real say in the matter, as city attorneys explained, placing the referendum on the ballot is simply a ministerial function.<\/p>\n Arias said he hopes to get a definitive answer on that point during a planned public meeting on the referendum Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not ready to vote on this because I don\u2019t even know what the implications would be legally for us as a governing body to take this up and say no,\u201d Arias said.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Duval School Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier indicated the district is consulting with its attorneys on possible paths forward if council tries to block the referendum.<\/p>\n Bolduc said it\u2019s her hope council comes around and lets voters decide in November.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not my desire to ask. So, I think they know that and so I hope that they trust that we\u2019re asking because we are in a place where we can\u2019t not ask,\u201d Bolduc said.<\/p>\n Council has until June 23rd to approve the referendum before it would be too late for it to be placed on the November ballot.<\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A battle appears to be brewing between the school board and city council in Duval…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":843900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,5229,82826,13816,345274,223678,9223,12187,345273,345271,3188,723,11561,7310,82820,3005,48908,48916,425,345272,82822,28496,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-843899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-america","tag-arias","tag-ben_becker","tag-bolduc","tag-christopher_bernier","tag-doctor","tag-duval_county","tag-duval_school","tag-duval_school_board","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville_city_council","tag-jake","tag-jake_stoan","tag-jake_stowan","tag-local","tag-melody_bolduc","tag-raul_arias","tag-tanika_hughes","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116692117496354406","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}