Scott Howard, a representative of Orange County Public Schools, briefed the City of Maitland council on the district
nd its strategic priorities, enrollment trends and a small, locally focused endowment known as the Maitland Fund.

Howard said voters renewed a half‑cent sales tax that funds renovation and reconstruction of older schools for the next 10 years and noted that the district is the eighth largest in the country and fourth in Florida. He described the board
dopted strategic plan and "Portrait of a Graduate," which emphasizes academic foundations, essential skills and workplace readiness and underpins five‑year KPIs the district will track.

Howard reported a multi‑year decline in enrollment since pre‑pandemic 2019, a net loss of roughly 13,000 students (traditional and charter combined) with elementary kindergarten through fifth grades accounting for a large share. He attributed the drop to lower birth rates and to growth in taxpayer‑funded school vouchers; he said the district has the lowest decline among the large urban Florida districts and is pursuing recruitment and choice strategies to attract returning students.

On funding, Howard said state revenue comprises about 47% of the districtudget and local revenue, including a 1‑mill property tax, comprises about 53%. He showed staff analyses comparing the board
uthorized local millage and state funding trajectories against inflation and said state funding increases have lagged CPI.

Howard also described the Maitland Fund, created via a 2017 developer agreement and managed by the districtoundation. The original $300,000 corpus was intended to generate annual distributions for the three public schools within city limits for before‑ and after‑school activities, supplements for teachers or transportation. Howard said the fund has distributed about $85,000 since inception and currently has a market value of about $353,000 after distributions; annual distributions have averaged about $8,000 per year for each school but have varied with market performance. He said the fund is open to private donations that would add to the corpus and generate larger distributions over time and offered to meet with the schoolsurrent principals about current needs.

Council members asked about whether the annual distribution is fixed or tied to inflation, recruitment of teachers (Howard said human resources maintains a recruitment function and that specialized special‑education positions are the hardest to fill), and the multiyear rollback of local millage rates. Howard said the legislature has authority over millage rollbacks and that boards may ask voters for additional levies but do not set millage unilaterally.

Howard offered to provide follow‑up information to council and to meet with principals about fund distributions. The council thanked him for the presentation.