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Duval County School Board adopts 2024-25 millage levies and final budget after brief presentations
Summary
The Duval County School Board approved the superintendent—s annual financial report, multiple budget resolutions and the 2024-25 millage levies — required local effort (3.0920 mills), nonvoted discretionary (0.7480 mills), voted discretionary (1.0000 mills) and capital outlay (1.5000 mills) — generally by 5-0 votes after staff presentations and limited member questions.
The Duval County School Board on Sept. 5, 2024, approved final budget resolutions, the superintendent—s annual financial report and a package of millage levies for fiscal year 2024-25 after brief staff presentations and short member discussion.
Dr. Pernier recommended that the board adopt a set of final budget resolutions across the district—s funds and approve the superintendent—s annual financial report, also called the AFR, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024. "That recommendation ... is that the Duval County School Board approve the superintendent's annual financial report, otherwise known as an AFR, inclusive of the cost report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024 as presented," Dr. Pernier said. The board voted to approve the AFR and the listed budget resolutions by recorded action (passed 5-0).
On millage levies, Dr. Pernier read the staff recommendations and rates the board adopted. The board conducted and closed required public hearings with no public speakers before voting.
Board Member Jones raised a common constituent question about millage changes, asking why the board "keep rolling back the millage when we have a shortfall in revenue" and noting layoffs. In response, Dr. Pernier explained the district—s limits on that particular levy: "We do not control our required local millage. That is a number provided to us from the Department of Education through Tallahassee through the FEFP formula," he said. That required local effort was stated as 3.0920 mills, with the amount to be raised read in the meeting as $350,875,688.
Staff also presented and the board approved a nonvoted discretionary operating levy of 0.7480 mills (staff read a proposed amount to be raised as $84,881,959). For the voted discretionary operating levy, the board approved 1.0000 mill; Mr. Fagan explained the difference between the two rates: "The 1 ... is the 1 mill that we had to have a referendum for that had to be voted on and the ... 0.748 is a discretionary that we're allowed to levy without a referendum by the state," he said.
The board approved a capital outlay millage of 1.5000 mills for the capital projects fund. Mr. Pinkett clarified that the 1.5000 mills "is your funding for capital outlay ... So it is only allowed to be used for capital projects," not discretionary operating expenses.
The transcript includes several dollar figures for amounts to be raised and for fund totals read aloud during the final-budget presentation; multiple of those dollar amounts in the record appear to be transcription errors or garbled (the record shows unusually large numbers that are internally inconsistent). Where the meeting record clearly stated a millage rate or a figure (as noted above), this article reports that amount; where the dollar figure in the transcript is garbled or inconsistent, the transcript notes the figure but the published record identifies the dollar amount as not reliably stated in the audio transcript.
All presented budget and millage items were approved by the board (votes recorded or by hand signal) with the meeting record reflecting unanimous 5-0 outcomes on the substantive motions. There were no public speakers during the hearings. The meeting adjourned following approval of the final budget.
