District will still collect more than last year thanks to rise in property rates
The Osceola County School District is slightly dropping the millage rate property owners pay to fund schools locally.
That announcement was part of a $2.14 billion budget district finance leaders proposed at Tuesday’s Osceola School Board meeting.
The millage rate as part of the District’s 2024-25 budget will be 5.343 mills, down from 5.504 in the previous budget. A mill is a levy of $1 in taxes per $1,000 of assessed value; a $225,000 home with a standard $25,000 homestead exemption would pay $1,068.30 in school property taxes.
But even with the millage rate decrease — district records show has dropped slightly each of the last four years from when it was 6.026 mills in 2020-21 — the district will receive about $20 million more in local taxes ($314.6 million over $293.47 million) than last year thanks to property values and the tax roll increasing.
As part of that $2 billion budget, $784.1 million is slotted for general operations such as staff salaries, and just over $1 billion is earmarked for capital projects, such as new schools and other facilities.
The final budget will be brought forth at final hearing at the Sept. 10 Board meeting, when Board members will vote it in.
In other notes from the meeting, Superintendent Dr. Mark Shanoff noted that while the district still has unfilled teaching positions — records show there were 144 unfilled teaching positions, down from 188 a year ago — the Osceola district is in better shape than most other school district its size or larger in employment.
“Our HR team has worked really hard to fill the vacancies we have. We have a teacher shortage in this country. We are no different that anyone else,” he said. “Having spent time with superintendents from across the country, there are a lot of school districts across the country, smaller than us, that have significantly more vacancies. But we are continuing to staff all of our classrooms, and that doesn’t end until they’re all filled.”
At the conclusion of the meeting, Board member Jon Arguello made motions to modify the evaluation process for the superintendent and School Board Attorney, asked to terminate Attorney Sarah Koren and censure Board chair Heather Kahoun and vice chair Teresa Castillo. Regarding the evaluations, he felt the process provided those positions the ability to, “Be able to make their own report card.”
“It also doesn’t provide the community to have feedback on someone’s performance,” Arguello said, noting the Attorney’s evaluation, done just weeks into her tenure was “a joke” and “a horrendous evaluation.”
He then bashed the work of Koren, who came to Osceola after 12 years as a staff attorney for Orange County Public School and replaced the exiting Frank Kruppenbacher in 2023.
“She will only speak up when told, in the manner that she’s told by a majority of this School Board in a way that negatively impacts the community. This is not a good thing, not the intent of changing the school board.”
He then accused Kahoun and Castillo of failing to uphold parliamentary procedure and running the meeting in “A fair and effective manner,” and accused Castillo of “losing control and composure” during meetings.
Two motions got to a vote and failed, the others died for lack of second.
