St. Lucie County Schools Superintendent Wayne Gent and Sheriff Ken Mascara teamed up to promote the April 23 referendum on a tax hike that would raise $22 million per year for teacher raises and school security.
Gent and Mascara gave a presentation and answered questions at town meetings at Fort Pierce Central, St. Lucie West Centennial, Port St. Lucie and Lincoln Park Academy high schools as part of the “#4OurKids” campaign.
“We compete to recruit teachers from across the nation as well as in the state,” Gent told the audience of about 30 people Monday night at Fort Pierce Central.
“There’s a teacher shortage,” Gent said. “There are 2,000 less teachers in Florida this year than there were last year. There are 80 to 100 vacancies in our own district.”
It costs the district about $10,000 to recruit and hire each teacher, Gent said. So replacing 100 teachers per year could cost the district $1 million.
Voters in neighboring Martin County approved a school tax increase in 2018 that raised the pay of starting teachers by $1,800 and that of 10-year classroom veterans by $7,800.
In Palm Beach County, voter approval of a school tax hike in 2018 resulted in $10,000 raises for teachers with 10 years of experience or more.
Since pay hikes have not kept up in St. Lucie County, some of the best teachers have been tempted to seek better-paying jobs in nearby districts, Gent said.
“We cannot afford to have one of our highly-qualified teachers or staff members go to a different district,” Gent said. “It affects the overall running of the school center.”
David Freeland, president of the St. Lucie County Classroom Teachers Association, joined Gent and Mascara at a news conference on Feb. 27 at Fort Pierce Central to explain why the money is needed.
“If you can drive 15 minutes and get a $10,000 raise, that’s a pretty easy decision for a lot of people,” Freeland said. “We do have a lot who go to other counties.”
The county’s 203,119 registered voters will be asked to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a proposal to increase the property tax rate for schools by $1 to $7.335 per $1,000 of assessed value for four years.
Voters will receive mail ballots in early April and have until 7 p.m., April 23 to return them to the Supervisor of Elections Office. If voters approve the tax hike, the school property tax bill of a home with an assessed value of $200,000 would increase by about $200 per year to $1,467.
Mascara said he agreed to chair a political action committee to raise money to advocate for the proposed school tax hike.
Homebuilders have been among the top contributors to the committee because they understand the importance of the public school system to homebuyers, Mascara said.
The sheriff’s office provides a school resource deputy to all 39 public schools in the district, Mascara said. The Port St. Lucie Police Department has also assigned police officers to the city’s three public high schools.
Public schools and law enforcement have been on high alert since the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, that killed 17 people and wounded another 17, Mascara said.
“It’s a large undertaking to make sure that our campuses, our schools and our children are safe,” Mascara said. “Every threat has to be investigated, every threat involves a home visit and a visit with parents, so it requires a tremendous amount of manpower and assets.”
