Services: Community Engagement

Case Study: Orange’s Half-Penny Sales Tax Has Redone 132 schools, Built 64

By LESLIE POSTAL | lpostal@orlandosentinel.com | Orlando Sentinel

PUBLISHED: January 6, 2023 at 1:53 p.m. | UPDATED: January 6, 2023 at 8:00 p.m.

Almost 20 years ago, the Orange County school district demolished the old Orlo Vista Elementary School, a 1952 campus reliant on rundown portables and plagued by leaky sewer pipes.

With money from a new half-penny sales tax, Orange County Public Schools built a replacement campus and heralded the start of the largest school construction spree in Florida, one that will continue at least for another two years.

County voters first approved the extra sales tax in 2002, agreeing to pay more for many purchases so the district could replace or overhaul 136 aging campuses and build new ones to meet the needs of a rapidly growing student population. It was one of the largest local school tax initiatives to go to voters in U.S. history, the Orlando Sentinel reported at the time.

The sales tax, bumped up to 6.5% with that vote, didn’t go a far as hoped, however, paying to fix or replace 94 schools on that initial list. But voters agreed in 2014 to continue the tax for another decade so the renovation and building could continue, too.

OCPS is now working on the last schools on that original list, its four technical college campuses that are slated to be completed in 2023, 2024 and 2026. Since 2003, the sales tax has raised more than $3.9 billion and the district has renovated or replaced 132 schools and opened 64 new ones, including five that opened in August.

“This community has long been supportive of public education,” said Dick Batchelor, the former state lawmaker and consultant who lead the public campaign to pass both tax initiatives. “Every new school is a testament to the widespread support of the public.”

Without the extra half-penny tax, Batchelor added, “what you would have had is schools falling down.”

The Orange County School Board has not yet discussed whether to ask voters to consider another sales tax extension in 2024.

Board member Pam Gould, who has been on the board since 2012, said that decision could hinge on whether the state, which has cut state funds for school construction in the past decade, shifts course in coming years.

But Gould said there is no doubt the local sales tax has made OCPS’ construction program the envy of districts across Florida and the country, where many school administrators can do no more than respond to crises, such as failing roofs and broken air conditioners.

OCPS, on the other hand, has money to both build new campuses — 11 more are to open in the next seven years, including the district’s 23rd high school — and to maintain ones already constructed while also looking at “value added” components like technology and collaborative learning spaces, she said.

“Can great things happen in crappy buildings? Yes,” Gould said. But parents, students, employees all feel better on campuses that aren’t plagued by problems and new schools in “every part of the county” are a selling point to the public, she added.

Between 2011 and 2019, there were 130 new public schools built in Florida and 51, or 39%, were built in Orange County, according to Tindale Oliver, a consulting firm that has helped the district with school planning. No other Florida district had built more than six schools in that time period.

The sales tax money helped build new schools in some of the county’s fastest-growing areas where lots of new residents meant a need for more schools, including east Orange, the Lake Nona area and, most notably, Horizon West in the southwest corner of the county. Three of the new 2022 schools were built in Horizon West.

Gould, whose district includes Horizon West, said some residents wish new schools could open even faster. But the number of new schools opened with the tax money is “astounding,” she said, and those funds are “allowing us to keep pace with growth.”

OCPS’ enrollment has grown by more than 29,000 students in the past 13 years, state figures show. It has more than 191,000 students on district-run campuses.

With its sales tax money, the district also built new campuses to replace long-standing schools that had outlived their buildings, from West Orange High School to Union Park Middle School to Dr. Phillips Elementary School. Others, like Winter Park High School and Windermere Elementary School, got significant overhauls, also paid for with sales tax money.

Orlo Vista Elementary, off Kirkman Road, was the poster child for the sales tax campaign, with the school board holding 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.

With its construction boom, OCPS also reduced its use of portable classrooms, though they remain in play, as even with the sales tax money the district cannot build schools as fast as new students arrive. This year, about 1,250 are in use across the district while in 2002 there were about 3,600.

Getting the sales tax on the 2002 ballot was a messy process, marked by political squabbles and fierce debates about how to balance the need for additional schools with the need to replace or renovate aging campuses.

Batchelor, a Democrat, asked a Republican, the late Congressman Lou Frey, to co-chair the the committee that was pushing for the the initial 2002 sales tax. That bipartisan support, plus the backing of key political leaders and business and community groups, from home builders to the PTA, helped the tax pass, he said.

So did the district’s decision to create an committee of outside experts — one that still operates today — to help review construction projects, Batchelor said. Former superintendents Ron Blocker and Barbara Jenkins were committed to keep projects moving and within budget, he said.

Plus, he added, the sales-tax campaign at its core was about “trying to provide a safe learning environment for our kids,” and that resonated with the public.

The 2002 tax passed with 59% of the vote, and the 2014 extension passed with 64% of the vote.

Thanks to taxpayers, OCPS has “beautiful, updated schools in every part of the county,” said Lauren Roth, a district spokesperson. “There aren’t a lot of places that can say that.”

lpostal@orlandosentinel.com