Lee Co. School Board proposes increasing county sales tax

LEE COUNTY, Fla.- It’s your money and the Lee County School Board will decide whether or not people will get a chance to vote if they want to pay more in taxes to help fund schools.

The school board is proposing increasing the county sales tax by half a penny.

Historically, asking voters to increase taxes has been unsuccessful.

At Tuesday’s school board budget workshop, the school district laid out what it would mean if they don’t receive an extra $50 million in funding from a proposed increase in the county sales tax from 6 percent to 6.5 percent.

“We’re getting down to cuts that are going to have the potential to hurt the quality of our district and that’s what we’re trying not to do,” said Lee County Superintendent Nancy Graham.

The school district says it doesn’t have enough funding to account for next year’s enrollment growth and needs the money to build new schools, pay off existing debt and do other improvement projects.

If they don’t get the money, the district says they’ll have to pull money from reserves, as well as possibly cut programs like busing for some after school activities, and make changes to middle and high school sporting events.

“Instead of running outside games at night when we have to turn on the lights, and spend money on the electricity, those activities would have to happen during the day, namely we’d probably be looking at Saturday.”

If the proposal makes the November ballot, the school district would have to spend an estimated $1.2 million in election costs because it’s a special election.

Trust WINK News to let you know what the school board decides.