After recognizing that the Miami-Dade County Public School system is an A-rated school district for the first time and students are performing above the state’s rate, County Commissioners approved a resolution to propose a property tax increase on November’s ballot asking voters to give teachers a pay raise and increase school safety.
Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and the School Board requested the proposal on the ballot, which, if approved, homeowners would pay an additional 75 cents per thousand dollars of their taxable value to pay for higher teachers’ salaries from 2019 to 2023.
The special tax would also pay for additional school resource officers at each school in Miami-Dade County following the Stoneman Douglas High massacre which took the lives of 17 students and teachers.
County Commissioner Barbara Jordan, who requested the ballot measure for November 6, said taxpayers would decide teachers’ fate on increasing their pay.
“This will give Miami-Dade voters the opportunity to decide whether to tax themselves more to pay for teacher salary increases and increased safety,” she said a a recent County Commission meeting.
Carvalho went before county commissioners to lobby them to approve the ballot proposal, mentioning an A-rated school district with no F schools, the highest graduation rates in history and students outperforming above the state’s rate, as the reasons teachers deserve a pay hike.
Adding to the School Board’s plans to increase security through the proposed tax increase, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s proposed budget for 2018-2019, allocated $20 million to assign a police officer at more than 100 Miami-Dade public schools, and funding new response teams and additional training for officers.