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Panel advances measure to let school boards roll millage back from 14 to 10 mills
Summary
A committee advanced a bill to let local school boards reduce their millage rate from a 2019 14-mill cap down to 10 mills, with a stated 25% penalty for going below the 10-mill threshold.
Senator Watson told the Senate Education Committee he sponsored legislation to restore local flexibility for school boards by allowing them to roll their millage rate back to 10 mills from a 14-mill cap set in 2019.
"We're willing to change state law to allow them to roll it back to 10," Watson said, saying the change would allow school systems that do not need additional revenue to return money to taxpayers as property assessments rise. Watson said the bill includes a safeguard — what he described as "a 25% penalty if they try to go below the $10.10 mil cap" — intended to keep local districts with "skin in the game" for funding education.
Watson said the measure follows work by a House colleague, Representative Chaz Cannon, and that the bill addresses a problem local officials have raised in counties such as Cockpit County. Committee members discussed the policy trade-offs, with one member asking whether the original policy purpose still applies and raising the possibility of eliminating the cap entirely in the future.
A motion to pass the bill was made and seconded, and the chair announced the motion passed unanimously; the transcript does not include a roll-call tally or the identity of the mover and seconder in a clear, attributable line.
