{"id":83345,"date":"2026-10-05T14:54:01","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T18:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=83345"},"modified":"2026-10-05T14:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T18:54:08","slug":"polk-county-school-tax-referendum-what-voters-need-to-know-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/10\/05\/polk-county-school-tax-referendum-what-voters-need-to-know-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County School Tax Referendum: What Voters Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Polk County voters will decide on a\u00a01.0 mill ad valorem property tax referendum\u00a0in the upcoming General Election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If taxpayers approve it, the measure is projected to generate about\u00a0$65.6 million annually for Polk County Public Schools (PCPS), with an additional\u00a0$13.6 million distributed to local charter schools\u00a0under state law and enrollment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Details & Allocation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Employee Pay & Recruitment (80% \/ ~$52.5M):<\/strong> Earmarked to fund competitive salary increases and retention supplements for school-based employees, including classroom teachers, support staff, paraprofessionals, and bus drivers. District leadership noted that Polk County ranked 53rd out of Florida’s 67 counties in per-student funding and faced over 400 instructional vacancies heading into the school year.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Academic & Safety Programs (20% \/ ~$13.1M):<\/strong> Dedicated to supporting fine and performing arts, career and technical education (CTE), early childhood education, and school safety\/security initiatives.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Exclusions & Oversight:<\/strong> Revenue generated from the millage cannot be used for district administrator pay or expanding district-level administrative roles. An independent Citizens’ Oversight Committee will review all expenditures for fiscal transparency and compliance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Polk County voters will decide on a\u00a01.0 mill ad valorem property tax referendum\u00a0in the upcoming General Election. If taxpayers approve it, the measure is projected to generate about\u00a0$65.6 million annually… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzEwXC9pbWFnZXMtMi0xLndlYnAiLCJ0eHQiOiJQb2xrIENvdW50eSBTY2hvb2wgVGF4IFJlZmVyZW5kdW06IFdoYXQgVm90ZXJzIE5lZWQgdG8gS25vdyIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiZG9pcyIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.FoQ5pqwgdNX1MD4IJGJ4rkKNedrZjNJsTCONhGOZwOcMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzEwXC9pbWFnZXMtMi0xLndlYnAiLCJ0eHQiOiJQb2xrIENvdW50eSBTY2hvb2wgVGF4IFJlZmVyZW5kdW06IFdoYXQgVm90ZXJzIE5lZWQgdG8gS25vdyIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiZG9pcyIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.FoQ5pqwgdNX1MD4IJGJ4rkKNedrZjNJsTCONhGOZwOcMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[15748,17791,746,15288,17788,17789,17790],"class_list":["post-83345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-florida-education","tag-local-election","tag-polk-county-public-schools","tag-property-tax","tag-referendum","tag-school-funding","tag-teacher-pay"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83347,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83345\/revisions\/83347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}