HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — On Tuesday, the Hillsborough County School Board will take the next step after 67% of voters passed the millage referendum last month.
“The amount of people that came out to vote and voted for it—we overwhelmingly won this millage referendum. That tells us and tells the community that we’re in this together, we want to help kids and we believe in strong public schools,” said Rob Kriete, president of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association.
Ninety-two percent of the revenue that will come from this tax will be used for employee compensation, and 8% will be used for educational programs.
The school district and the unions representing teachers and support staff have reached a tentative agreement on how to split the money allocated for compensation.
“Very confident that the board will vote this in. This is pretty much the way we go forth and tell the taxpayers that we’re doing exactly what we said we were going to do with this money. Right now, we have hundreds of vacancies just in teaching alone, and we’re going to make sure that we work as hard as we can, collaborating with the district to fill these holes so that way we can all meet the needs of the kids,” said Kriete.
According to the agreement the school board will vote on, teachers and administrators would receive an additional $6,000 annually on top of their salaries.
Support staff would receive an additional $3,000.
“It absolutely is going to help us retain. That’s the first thing. And then the recruitment, we believe, is going to help us going into the summer and having the ability to tell new employees, 'Hey, this is what we’re doing; this is what we believe we’re going to be able to do for you in terms of salary,'" said Kriete.
The millage will be effective for the 2025-2026 school year through 2029.
“The school district will see this money in early January of 26. We’re looking to create a way where we can get money, start paying the employees as early as August when they come back to the school year,” said Kriete.
The meeting starts at 4 p.m.
