Many Florida public school districts are struggling with the double whammy of fewer dollars and fewer students. Leon County School Board Member Alva Smith says her district is among them.
“Our budget from 2023 to 2025/26 has gone from $667 million to about $647 million, so you can see the decline financially. But that gives you an idea of the size of the budget that we’re working with. The students have gone from around 31, 32,000 down to around 30. You’re going to see some numbers in the 29,000s. So you can see our decline.”
Smith, who’s running for a final term on the board, has been urging her colleagues to look at consolidating some local schools to save money. She gave members of the Capital Tiger Bay club handouts with lots of numbers and other data before speaking at their Monday (March 16) luncheon meeting. The Leon County School District has also been looking at a possible property tax boost to improve teacher pay, despite the overall budget decline. Smith said some other districts in the state have tried the same thing, but the results have been mixed.
“About half of those districts have an additional millage and about half don’t. So it’s not a true indication that an additional millage is going to raise your teachers’ salaries. There are districts that are doing better than us without that additional millage, so just as a point of interest.”
So far, Smith is the only candidate to file for the school board seat she now occupies.
