As if it weren't bad enough that local property taxpayers will end up footing more of Florida's public education system than the state for the first time in decades, consider this. If the Legislature based its school funding formula on inaccurate property tax roll estimates, the local taxpayers' share could grow even more.

It's no secret that property values have been tanking. Just look around you at the number of foreclosures and houses that have sat on the market for months, or read about the nation's sub-prime mortgage crisis. That news has prompted more than one property appraiser to reevaluate assessed values, with an expectation among many that the tax roll will head downward and not the other way.

Pasco superintendent Heather Fiorentino described this scenario to some top state education officials when she got some face time with them this week, asking pointedly whether the state or the local taxpayers would make up the difference if Pasco's values were closer to $29-billion than the $30-billion that lawmakers predicated the district's budget (and tax rate) on.

The answer was short, not so sweet and probably predictable: "We would have to raise taxes," Fiorentino told the Gradebook. Hang on, folks. It could be a bumpy budget cycle. Counties will be releasing their property tax rolls on July 1.