Leon County Schools Weighs $30 Million Payroll Loan as 29 Florida Districts Ask Voters for More Tax Money

The Leon County School Board will decide Tuesday, Oct. 13, whether to borrow $30 million to cover payroll, WFSU reported, a stark sign of the financial squeeze facing the Tallahassee-area district three weeks before voters decide whether to raise their property taxes to pay teachers and staff.

Leon is one of 29 Florida school districts, out of 67, asking voters on the Nov. 3 ballot to approve a local property tax levy to cover operating costs, according to WFSU. The requests share the ballot with Amendment 3, the statewide measure that would expand homestead exemptions and shrink future property tax collections for local governments, leaving voters to weigh a tax increase for schools and a tax cut for everything else on the same ballot.

A district out of room

Superintendent Rocky Hanna has said for months that costs are rising faster than state funding. In a WFSU interview, he described a cycle in which flat revenue and growing expenses force the district into repeated cuts.

"If we continue this pattern of the same amount of revenue, yet costs continue to increase, before long we're going to have to cut ourselves to death," Hanna said.

The board has already acted on that warning. In March, members unanimously approved $7.8 million in reductions for the 2026-27 school year, including a $2.3 million cut to district cost centers, a $4.8 million cut in staffing, $500,000 from arts and athletics programs and a $125,000 reduction in funding for community groups. Hanna said at the time that some of the arts and athletics money could be restored if the Legislature delivered better funding news.

In April, board members debated a possible $30 million hole in the district's budget. The 2026-27 budget the board approved in July on a 4-1 vote, with board member Alva Smith opposed, came in about $32 million below the prior year, according to WCTV, and Hanna said emergency reserves were at the lowest level he had seen in his 11 years as superintendent.

The Oct. 13 vote on a $30 million loan to cover payroll comes at a point in the year when Florida school districts are still waiting on most of their property tax revenue, since tax bills go out in November.

What voters are being asked

The Leon referendum asks voters to approve an additional operating levy of one mill, or $1 for every $1,000 of taxable property value, for four years, from July 1, 2027, through June 30, 2031. Spending would be reviewed by a citizens advisory committee. An earlier district draft projected the levy would raise about $26 million a year.

The School Board voted 4-1 in May to seek the referendum to pay for teacher recruitment, retention and pay, school safety, and arts and athletics. Board member Laurie Lawson Cox cast the dissenting vote. "I just feel like that right now is not the right time to ask our taxpayers for more money," she said, according to WTXL. Smith, who voted yes, said she wanted teachers paid more even if the path was not the one she preferred. The Leon County Commission, which has limited discretion under state law when a school board requests a referendum, formally placed the question on the ballot in June.

Voters will see a second school question as well. County commissioners voted May 12 to put a renewal of the district's half-cent sales tax for school construction and maintenance, in place since 2002 and set to expire in 2027, on the November ballot. District officials have said failing to renew it would cost the district about $621.7 million in future revenue, money projected to go mostly toward facilities renewal and maintenance, new construction and safety and security.

Teachers' union makes its case

The Leon Classroom Teachers Association is campaigning for the levy. President Scott Mazur acknowledged that some voters are skeptical because of concerns about past district spending, but said the money has a specific purpose.

Every dollar raised by the millage increase would go to the people who serve students and the community, Mazur told WFSU. In Leon, the levy would help pay educators and school security personnel among other staff.

Mazur also said the side-by-side ballot questions, a local tax increase and a statewide tax cut, may confuse some voters, and that the union is working to explain what the local referendum asks.

A statewide pattern

Leon's request is part of a broader trend. Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar said local levies have become a routine tool for districts trying to keep pace with costs.

"Almost all of the referendum are to help with teacher and staff pay. We have referendum now in about half of the counties if not more in the state of Florida so this has become a tool that districts are using over and over again to make sure that the public schools have the support they need to be successful," Spar said.

Several of Florida's largest districts are asking voters to renew existing levies this fall. Duval County Public Schools is seeking to keep its current one-mill tax, which the district projects will raise about $121 million a year, mostly for teacher pay and security. Palm Beach County voters will decide on renewing a one-mill levy the district describes as an extension of an existing measure rather than a new tax, and Martin County is seeking to renew a levy first approved in 2018 and reauthorized in 2022.

How Amendment 3 fits in

Amendment 3 would raise the homestead exemption for non-school property taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028 and cut the annual cap on assessment increases for non-homestead property from 10% to 5%. Because the expanded exemption applies to non-school taxes, school levies such as Leon's would not be directly reduced by the measure, and Spar said the FEA is not worried about its effect on local school referendums. He described support for Amendment 3 as a sign of voters wanting government to spend their money wisely.

The constitutional amendment needs 60% approval to pass, and recent polls have shown support ranging from 42% to 63%. Local school levies need only a simple majority.

What's next

The School Board takes up the proposed $30 million payroll loan at its Oct. 13 meeting. Leon County voters can request a mail ballot through 5 p.m. on Oct. 22, early voting runs at least from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31, and Election Day is Nov. 3. If the one-mill levy passes, collections would begin with the 2027-28 school year; if it fails, the district would head into another budget cycle relying on cuts and reserves that Hanna has already called dangerously thin.