Manatee school board will vote to give charters a cut of half-penny tax

Lakewood Ranch resident Tara Higgins is the mother of a first grader who attends Lakewood Ranch Preparatory Academy. Her family moved to Manatee County three years ago and she didn’t know much about how the half cent sales tax in the county would benefit charter schools.

This year she learned that since August 2023, charter schools have received no funding from the half penny sales tax. Along with other charter school parents, she is not happy.

In 2016, the half penny sales tax was renewed with the support of charter schools with the idea that it was to support all public school students — including those in charter schools. A block grant had provided charter schools with some funding from the half penny tax, but those funds stopped in 2023.

Higgins questions why her daughter’s school is seen differently than other public schools and hopes to see fair distribution to all public schools in the future. 

“It puts public charter schools at a disadvantage for resources and renovations,” Higgins said. “This ends up putting strain on the families to fundraise more in order to provide necessities for the children’s school.” 

With a backlash from the charter school community, the School District of Manatee County board held a workshop May 23 to discuss ways to provide charter schools with a percentage of the half penny tax. On June 24, school board members will tentatively vote on ways to move forward to provide charter schools with what they called "an equitable" share of the funds.

Steve Zickafoose, senior director of school improvement at Manatee School for the Arts, said the May 23 workshop provided the charter school community with a a thoughtful and constructive conversation. He said board members showed they weren’t dwelling on past decisions and were trying to focus on making the right decisions moving forward. 

“While the outcome does not fully reflect the level of equity we hoped for from the start, it represents a meaningful step forward,” Zickafoose said. “It shows that the school board, as a collective body, is recognizing the value of our charter students and the important work happening in our schools.”

Zickafoose said a showdown with the school board members was coming.

“The parents that I talked to are mad, because they know every time they buy a drink, or every time they go to any store, Lowes or wherever, that the money that they thought was going to their kid does not go to their kid,” he said. “That's the biggest thing, parents are just very upset about feeling misled.”

School board members acknowledged that the system should be changed moving forward.

“I would like to see us working together for the greater good, which is obviously educating our children and to make our community the best that it possibly can be in the future,” School Board Member Chad Choate said.

Zickafoose described charter schools as the other public schools' “little cousin” that provides the education system with different ways to be innovative. 

“It's not that we get extra funding,” said Zickafoose. “We are fighting for the same pennies so that our kids get the same benefit.” 

In Manatee County, one out of every five students goes to a charter school.

District 2 Board Member Cindy Spray has more charter school students in her district — 3,900 — than any other district in Manatee County.

“Charters were never identified in that language (on how to distribute the half penny sales tax funds) back in 2016. The board at the time advocated for charters to get behind it and support it, which they did,” Spray said.

The half penny sales tax will return to the ballot in 2032.

If the school board doesn't take action, Zickafoose said, “Everybody who has a kid in charter schools who's paying their sales tax can count on the next seven or eight years of not having their money go to their kid whatsoever. That's just wrong."

School board member Richard Tatem said he went back and watched the vote from 2016 and said the board was not exactly clear in what the amendments and motions meant. He said it’s a good lesson to the current board that every motion needs to be clarified.

Zickafoose said the block grant gave the charter schools about between 3% to 5% of what they should have received.

“We’ve talked about some of the discrepancies and I do not think we play on an even playing field," Choate said. "I do think we need each other. I think we need charters more than you probably sit and think about. If we didn’t have them, where would that 20% of kids be, where would they be going?”

With more schools on the way due to growth and overcrowding, Choate said parents should have the right to choose where they send their kids whether it's based around academics, sports, arts or something else. 

“It's possible for charter schools and district leadership to work together to say we have a population over here that's overcrowded,” Zickafoose said. “Is there a charter school that we can support to open up in this zone to help alleviate that stress, that can build a building cheaper, and that could be more responsive quicker?” 

Even though board members acknowledged that charter schools should get a share of the half penny funds, the planning for the near future has left them in a bind.

“I don’t think we can chunk out $10.7 million for 2024-25 because we’ve already committed our dollars,” Spray said. “I do believe starting next year we need to slice it in there.” 

Choate said that it seemed like there was a consensus that in the 2025-26 school year, they would try to reimburse 50% of what the charter schools sales tax would have been if it was equitable. He said he hopes the district can provide the numbers of what an equitable portion of the tax funds would have been, before the June 24 meeting. Charter schools receive approximately 21% of the 1 mill property tax that was extended by voters in 2024 because they teach 21% of the district's students.

Board members discussed taking four years to work up to what they would consider to be a full equitable portion of the tax funds. Board Member Heather Felton was concerned about fiscal responsibility.

“I know there are people in this room who are not happy with (giving charter schools 50% of what is considered an equitable portion of the half penny tax in 2025-26) but we have to be fiscally responsible for the projects we already have,” Felton said. “We have to take care of things that we are required by law to do.” 

Prior to the workshop on May 23, Zickafoose said he had a petition that had about 2,300 signatures on it with about 150 people saying they want to speak at the upcoming board meetings. 

Charter schools in 2024-25 will receive $15,834,814, an estimated 20.91 percent, of the total budget from the 1-mill referendum that was extended in 2024.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct the school board meeting date.