Without sales tax extension, Orange school building plans face $2.7 billion shortfall, officials say
Orlando Sentinel |By Leslie Postal |
In the coming decade, Orange County Public Schools needs to build 15 new campuses, add classrooms to seven others that are getting crowded, renovate 96 older schools and replace roofs, air-conditioning units, fire alarms and technology at campuses across the county.
“The capital needs for the eighth largest district in the nation are significant and growing,” said Rory Salimbene, OCPS’ chief facilities officer, during an Orange County School Board meeting this week.
But the $2.7 billion worth of the projects OCPS wants to complete by 2033, including six of the new schools, cannot be paid for unless county voters extend a half-penny sales tax they first approved in 2002, the district says.
Rising construction prices — the cost of an elementary school has nearly doubled in the last five years — and budget constraints brought on by changes in state laws, among other issues, would make OCPS’ 10-year construction proposal more wish list than a planning document, if the sales tax, which sunsets next year, does not get renewed.
“Right now, most of the checks would come back ‘return for insufficient funds,’” Salimbene said.
The school board voted unanimously last month to put the sales tax extension referendum on the November ballot, and this week the Orange County Commission agreed it could go to voters on Nov. 5.
The school board, in a budget workshop on Tuesday, heard updates on construction and renovation plans, as it does every year before it votes on an annual spending plan in July. But this year, the “elephant in the room,” as Salimbene put it, is the uncertainty about whether the sales tax will be extended.
School leaders hope voters will say yes again to a tax that has paid for the renovation of 136 older campuses — work on the last four is underway — and the construction of 65 new ones, which means students from Apopka to Maitland to Windermere attend classes in new buildings.
“The renewal of the sales tax is critical if we are able to maintain these beautiful facilities and build new schools to keep up with the growth,” said Superintendent Maria Vazquez.
The district will need new schools in fast-growing areas like Apopka, Horizon West and Lake Nona, but its need for new campuses is less acute than in the past decade, with 15 on the drawing board for the coming 10 years versus 29 built since 2015.
The bulk of the coming $8.9 billion in capital program costs stems from the need to update and redo existing campuses, said Basem Ghneim, program manager in the department.
Schools not renovated as part of the first sales tax list, or renovated early on, will likely need work as they hit their 25th birthdays, Ghneim said.
“Unfortunately, the Plan B, if we don’t get extended, is the creation of a backlog,” he added.
To date, Orange’s tax has been popular with voters, passing with 59% of the vote in 2002 and then 64% in 2014.
Residents in neighboring counties, among them Lake, Osceola and Seminole counties, also have agreed in recent years to pay more in sales tax to help build or overhaul schools in their communities as state funding has become more limited.
A new K-8 school in Clermont, a renovated K-8 school in St. Cloud and a redone Casselberry Elementary School are among the projects those districts have funded with their sales tax money.
In Orange, another yes vote would mean the local sales tax stays at 6.5%, a half-penny above the state-required 6%, for another 10 years.
The sales tax currently pays for more than 45% of the school district’s capital funding, with local property taxes covering about 42% and impact fees paid by developers of new homes providing about 10%, according to OCPS’ 2023-24 budget.
The sales tax has become necessary as state support for school construction has eroded, officials said.
In 2008, the state stopped sharing with school districts utility tax revenue that had been targeted for school construction. In 2019, OCPS got its last $2.25 million in utility tax money that could be used for school maintenance.
“There used to be a lot more state funding for our capital needs, and it’s gone,” said board member Karen Castor Dentel. “So we do rely on our local residents, we do rely on sales tax and property tax, and we’re lucky to have the support of so many in our community.”
A new state law that requires school districts to give a share of local property taxes starting this year to charter schools, which are public schools run by private groups, also will mean less in construction coffers, said Doreen Concolino, OCPS’ chief financial officer.
The law could mean OCPS splits about $3 million among the 42 Orange charter schools this year and must send them up to $27 million in five years, Concolino said.
Rising construction costs are also hurting the district, she said.
A new elementary school cost about $18 million to build in 2019 but $37 million this year. OCPS is opening two new elementary schools for the 2024-25 school year.
Orange’s newest high school, Innovation High School, is to open in August, too. It is slated to relieve crowded Lake Nona High School, which has 4,500 students on a campus built for about 2,6000.
Innovation High has a budget of $230 million, making OCPS’ 23rd traditional high school also its most expensive. Sales tax money helped pay for some of those costs.
Good facilities set “the culture, the tone” for a school and impact whether it is viewed as a “community asset” or a “blight,” said board member Pam Gould.
New residents who see only “shiny and new” schools — the average age of an OCPS campus is 12 years — may not realize the state of local school buildings, some dating to the 1950s, before the sales tax was approved, Gould said.
“The pipes leaking and us not be able to repair them. Roofs leaking and not being able to repair them,” she added.
Orlo Vista Elementary School, built off Kirkman Road in 1952, for example, was the poster child for the first sales tax campaign. The school board held a press conference about the tax in the school’s rain-soaked portables in February 2002. A month later, a backed-up septic tank and broken cast-iron pipes under the 50-year-old school meant raw sewage floated up between floor tiles in one hallway and the whole school smelled.
The new Orlo Vista campus, the first completed solely with sales tax money, opened in 2004.
