Broward Schools & Property Tax Edition: Capitol to Courthouse Headliners

Click on a headline to read the complete story:

 

Florida may decide today whether to appeal ruling on property tax referendum

Rewrite it, appeal it; or do both.  Such are the options for state leaders scrambling to react to a Leon County judge’s decision to strike a proposed revamp of Florida’s homestead exemption law from the Jan. 29 ballot.

 

McCollum Brings CyberSafety Message to School

LAKELAND | The hands of Lake Gibson Middle School students went up in a flurry Monday when Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum asked them whether they had their own MySpace pages.

 

Tax fight brews on two fronts

The leader of the Florida Senate wants to appeal a judge’s ruling that threw out the property-tax vote from the Jan. 29 ballot.

A day after a judge threw out the Legislature’s ”misleading” tax-cut ballot language for a Jan. 29 vote, House Speaker Marco Rubio of West Miami said he wants to fight the matter in the courts and in the Capitol, where he’s reiterating talk of even bigger tax cuts.

 

A good ruling on bad ballot language

Thank goodness Eric Hersh challenged the Legislature’s summary of its property-tax cut proposal on the Jan. 29 ballot. The Leon County court was right, too, to reject the item based on Mr. Hersh’s lawsuit. The proposal’s ”language is misleading and confusing, and does not provide fair notice to the voter, educated or otherwise,” Circuit Court Judge Charles Francis wrote. He was kind.

 

Average Broward homeowner’s county tax bill to be $143 less

Fewer new library books. Higher bus fares. Possibly no holiday light display. Longer waits for auto tags. Pared-back crime-prevention programs.

 

Legislators at odds over tax bill again

After a judge axes the property tax plan, the House leader wants to fix it and the Senate leader forget it.

 

Editorial:  Judge’s ruling on “super-exemption” a chance to let tax reform panel have issue

Fixing language to get a property tax overhaul back on the Jan. 29 ballot seems an easy repair job. Still, a judge’s ruling gives Gov. Charlie Crist and the Legislature another opportunity to do the wise thing, and hand this contentious, complicated issue to the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission.

 

House OKs Expansion Of Children’s Health Insurance

WASHINGTON – The House voted Tuesday to expand health insurance for children, but the Democratic-led victory may prove short-lived because the margin was too small to override President Bush’s promised veto.

 

Jan. 29 school tax vote possible

Backers say primary ballot is a better spot than November.

Supporters of a special Pinellas school tax urged the district Tuesday to use the Jan. 29 ballot for a referendum on whether the tax should be renewed.

 

Ruling throws tax vote into tailspin

A judge calls the property-tax measure ‘misleading’ and drops it from the ballot.

A Leon County judge threw the fate of the much-maligned Jan. 29 property-tax amendment into limbo Monday, ruling the measure was “misleading and inaccurate” and striking it from the statewide ballot.

 

Real leadership

Our position: It’s time the School Board put an elected chairman before voters.

The Orange County School Board’s meeting Tuesday is sure to be a doozy.  It could be a red-letter day. If School Board members keep the promise they made more than a year ago, they’ll approve ballot language so voters can decide whether to create a countywide elected chairman.

 

School district, union debate on-call issue

The union bristles over a memo telling employees to be ready to staff emergency shelters. A state hearing officer’s opinion is due in 45 days.

LAND O’LAKES – Can the Pasco school district require all its employees to be on call to work in emergency shelters, even when they’re not technically working? Or must it win contract concessions to make it so?

 

Details Added To Teacher Web Site

TALLAHASSEE – Most teachers listed in the state’s online database of misconduct cases never admitted to the charges against them, and they were never proven guilty.

 

Advocacy groups rap Florida for cutting pre-kindergarten budget

A national advocacy group rapped Florida in a report released Tuesday for being the only state this year to cut its overall prekindergarten budget, even though per-student spending increased by $117, or 4.6 percent.

 

Broward School Board: Let’s stop FCAT mania in classes

Broward County public school officials say they are tired of letting the FCAT consume daily classroom lessons and have started the task of preparing students for the test without compromising day-to-day learning.