John Dick, school board member for the Monroe County School District, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in our schools.
How does the school district fit into the property tax discussion?
Dick said, “So far, all the proposals that have come forward keep the school district out of it, meaning they’re not going to cut the school district out. They’ll leave them in place. Now, again, I would really love to see where they’re going to come up with the extra money for all the other entities. I mean, they’re still going to get money somewhere, and if it’s all sales tax, that’ll affect everybody. One way or another, the taxes are going to come. But I do see out of this whole thing that they’re doing a lot of auditing now, up and down the state, into all the counties, and looking at where they’re spending. I think they’ve got them a little bit on the run, and these counties are going to cut back on their spending, which, to me, in the end, is a good result.”
Will the school district come under the same scrutiny?
Dick said, “We get audited every year, but the audit is not saying, are you doing the right thing with the money? They’re the audits that we get are did you do what you said you’re going to do, or did it go in the right spot? Was there any fraud or anything like that? But they don’t say, oh, you have too many people in this position, but now, I believe that they will come to the school districts and do the same thing that they’re looking at in the county now. The county audits now are also saying, hey, did you really need to do this? Do you really need to do that, or did you get the best price for something? So I would expect that to come to the school districts next, especially if all of this passed and the property tax had all these school districts on it, they’ll be the one and only thing. So it would follow suit that they would come and do that. I think it’s a good thing. I mean, anytime we can cut some spending from tax money, I think it’s a good thing. I mean, it has to be warranted. I mean, I don’t want to, like, for instance, for us, we have the highest salaries of teachers in the state, but we have to have that, because it’s the highest cost of living. So, somebody might look from up in the north, where the salaries you might be $20,000 less, and say, hey, you guys are wasting money paying too much. But if we didn’t pay them this, we wouldn’t have enough teachers to run the schools. So everybody has to understand the different communities and what’s needed and what’s not. But I do think all this is also trying to make housing more affordable. But unfortunately, I don’t think the tax bill is the worst problem on housing. It’s the initial purchase and the insurance down here in Florida.”
Monroe County School District does pretty well with recruiting teachers.
Dick said, “As long as I’ve been on the board, I think this was the best start. When I say the best start, meaning how many open positions there were, four. I mean, that’s incredible. That’s the best I’ve seen and I will be 20 years on this board. So again, that’s a testament to the earnings driven keeping teachers and getting in new ones. It’s imperative. Even for all the other positions. We were okay with the bus drivers, which is another position that’s been very problematic, but we’ve raised the salaries for them to the best we could and and that’s working. I’m very satisfied along those lines.”
Ed Tierney is the new superintendent.
Dick said, “I am very satisfied with the new superintendent. I think he’s doing a great job. He’s he’s really up and down the Keys, visiting all the schools. He’s seeing what’s going on, and I know he’s looking at places where thinks he might need a little improvement, a little change here or there or some reductions over here and there. I know he’s doing that. He’s also meeting in the communities. I know he’s been to both Republican and Democrat club meetings up and down the Keys and he’s visiting the other organizations, like Rotaries and he gets out to meet the people in all the communities, so not only in the schools, but out into the community. So I’m very satisfied with what he’s doing so far. He is gathering his information, and don’t forget, he came from Palm Beach. Big, big district, and he was the Deputy Superintendent of one of the biggest districts in this country, and he’s brought that attitude of running a district in a corporate type manner, and we needed that here. I’m very satisfied. I think I’ve seen a change in a lot of the activities, some of the people are doing here, and it’s all changed for the better.”
Has the government shut down affected the district?
Dick said, “It has had a slight effect on us, but we have a fund balance that will be well enough to cover up what we need to cover for for any shortfall of funds. There’s a couple of the grants have tightened up, and we may not get another payment from one or two of them, but we have the funds to cover it and keep going. And of course, once they open it up there, we would get the money, it would be refunded back to us. So we’re going to be fine in that and thankfully, because of our fund balance, we can handle this, and it’s one of the important things. I mean, we build our fund balance more for the problems we could have in hurricanes. I shouldn’t mention that word on the radio, but I think it’s going to be a great year.”