{"id":856474,"date":"2026-06-10T02:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T02:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/856474\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T02:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T02:28:18","slug":"city-council-votes-to-put-school-tax-extension-on-the-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/856474\/","title":{"rendered":"City Council votes to put school tax extension on the ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Duval County voters will decide whether to renew a property tax levied by the Duval school district that, in part, supplements teachers\u2019 salaries.<\/p>\n

One week after the Jacksonville City Council Finance Committee decided to put off voting<\/a> on authorizing the referendum on a four-year renewal, the council opted Tuesday with a 15-0 vote to add the question to November\u2019s ballot after all. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur duty as a council is to simply pass this bill on so that the voters in Duval County can vote on it,\u201d council member Tyrona Clark Murray said Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s not our job to decide if they have that right \u2014 they have that right by Florida statute.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s Office of General Counsel said earlier that according to Florida law, the council plays a largely pass-through role in the process of bringing the referendum to the ballot on the School Board\u2019s behalf. But, last week a handful of Finance Committee members questioned whether the district needs the additional revenue generated by the tax.<\/p>\n

Supporters said continued delay risked missing a fast-approaching deadline for the Supervisor of Elections to get the referendum on the ballot. <\/p>\n

Duval voters first approved the 1-mill tax in 2022. It costs property owners $1 for every $1,000 of taxable value. That comes to about $300 annually for average Jacksonville homeowner. District officials say it adds about $8,000 to each teacher\u2019s salary and also helps pay for arts and athletic programs.<\/p>\n

Last week, council member Raul Arias called the need to use the 1-mill property tax to pay teachers a \u201cfalse narrative.\u201d He hosted a community meeting last Friday, where Superintendent Christopher Bernier, several school board members, and numerous parents and teachers explained the difference the salary supplement makes in attracting and retaining skilled teachers.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, he told the council about his community meeting, calling it \u201cemotional\u201d and saying, \u201cMy heart was really moved.\u201d He made the motion to bring the decision to the floor for a vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are representing our community,\u201d Arias said. \u201cThey have a right to vote. Let\u2019s not take that away from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Procedurally, the council\u2019s role in putting the referendum is largely \u201cministerial,\u201d city General Council Michael Fackler told the council, because the School Board asked the council to do so with a 6-1 vote in early March<\/a>.<\/p>\n

School Board Chair Charlotte Joyce was the sole vote against the referendum, saying she agreed with paying teachers well but viewed arts and athletics as \u201cluxury\u201d programs while property taxes are expensive.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, council member Ron Salem said though he was initially skeptical of the district\u2019s need for the money, he\u2019d spent an hour talking with Bernier, who was \u201cpersuasive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve stated before, I don\u2019t have a \u2018ministerial\u2019 button,\u201d Salem said, referencing the keypad council members use to register their votes. \u201cAnd I feel strongly about that \u2014 I have a green button and a red button.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salem said he wanted to give Duval County voters the opportunity to vote on the referendum. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the evidence is there that this has made significant improvements in our system,\u201d Salem said. \u201cI want to give the residents the ability to vote on it themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Duval County voters will decide whether to renew a property tax levied by the Duval school district that,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":856475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,5310,293431,56179,407,3188,723,96628,7310,324046,50,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-856474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-america","tag-city-council","tag-distribute","tag-duval-county-public-schools","tag-education","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-government-politics","tag-jacksonville","tag-jaxtdy2","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116723456775795454","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856474","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=856474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}