Voters voice opinions on Hillsborough County School Board's millage referendum

Since The Tampa Tribune was shut down a few years ago, 1.2 million Hillsborough County voters lost the only source for investigative journalism focusing on crime and corruption in local government. The remaining media serving Hillsborough is totally lockstep left-wing with no opposing viewpoint tolerated.

That is how a teachers union , a Florida appeals court, and a school board were able to ramrod through a county commission, without a squeak heard from it, an annual salary increase of over $6,000 for the next four years for each of 15,162 public school teachers, on the backs of already-strapped property tax-paying home owners and business owners. This tax will add at least $281.00 to the average homeowner's annual tax bill for local schools, which tax category alone already represents over 75% of the total annual tax bill paid by county property owners.

Then the teacher's union and the school board lie about the purpose of the tax increase to the voters, claiming in the actual wording on the ballot it is money "For The Children".

Now it is out for a vote bv the entire population of the county, the vast majority of whom do not own real property and do not pay those kinds of special taxes. This "feel good" debacle will cost these happy-to-help voters not one red cent.

As we see happening everywhere, whenever corrupt elected public officials and judges are paid off by special interests, and no longer have to worry about media watchdogs on their backs, it's very easy to get the unwashed masses to vote for every special interest boondoggle coming down the pike, because it's somebody else's money that they'll be spending to pay for it--not theirs.

Less than 2 years ago, Duval County passed a similar millage increase, the purpose of the tax was sold to the public using the same reasons this tax is being sold.

Even some property owners have no idea what a millage increase is or how much it amounts to, it’s likely this tax increase will pass.

However, Florida has a very liberal school voucher program and in Duval County, despite the tax increase, is faced with having to close down a number of schools because so many parents have pulled their students from the public schools and put them in charter and private schools.

St. Johns County the neighboring county has the exact opposite problem, they claim to be the #1 rated school district in Florida and can’t build schools fast enough, their population is exploding they are building multiple schools of all types yearly it seems.