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Hernando leaders reflect after failure of penny sales tax for schools, government

 
Published Nov. 9, 2014

BROOKSVILLE — Barbara Kight, eating lunch at the Deli World restaurant in Brooksville last week, didn't buy the argument that one computerized tablet could replace an entire backpack of textbooks.

She wasn't swayed when told that this new technology is required by the state. She didn't want to hear any other arguments in favor of the Penny for Projects sales tax that would have raised $170 million over 10 years for the tablets and a long list of infrastructure improvements.

"I don't care," Kight, a 72-year-old accountant, said repeatedly. "I voted against it because I don't want any more taxes. I've got all the taxes I can take."

Voters such as Kight helped defeat the Penny referendum by a margin of 12 percentage points Tuesday, leaving its backers trying to figure out what changes are needed to pass such a measure in the future — or whether, considering the margin of defeat, it could pass at all.

"I really thought folks in Hernando County have had enough of cuts and cuts and cuts, and wanted to see some progress," former County Commissioner John Druzbick said. "But 7,500 voters — that's a good margin of people saying 'no.' This seemed to me to be a vote against taxes in general."

Druzbick, also a former School Board member, helped persuade the board to join with the county and the city of Brooksville to push for a 1-cent tax rather than seeking to continue the half-cent tax for schools that ends this year.

School Board member Gus Guadagnino had opposed joining forces and said after Tuesday's vote that the decision doomed the tax, especially because the city's and county's proposals included $56 million in road improvements.

"A lot of people didn't want the road projects shoved down their throats," Guadagnino said.

One indication that he might be right about the appeal of a schools-only tax were the results of five other school-tax referendums around the state Tuesday. All of them passed.

That the Penny proposal failed in Hernando, Guadagnino said, leaves the schools in such bad shape that the district needs to ask voters to restore the half-cent tax as soon as possible in a special election.

"I'm going to push for it," he said. "It's such a necessity."

Other backers of the tax, which included some of Hernando's most prominent business and political leaders, praised the cooperation between the schools, county and city, which have a long history of disagreement.

They didn't want to change the approach of working together to ask for a full penny tax. But they did point to different reasons the tax proposal had failed.

Before Tuesday's vote, Cliff Manuel, owner of Coastal Engineering Associates in Brooksville, had resisted tying the sales tax with impact fees, which are levied on new construction to pay for infrastructure improvements. But afterward, he said, he talked to several people who did connect the two issues. They believed that if leaders were going to ask the public to pay for roads and schools, they should ask builders to pay impact fees.

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That issue should be "resolved before the sales tax comes up again," Manuel said.

He also agreed with Guadagnino that the county and city probably included too many road projects on their lists.

And he said that, despite the roughly $160,000 spent on promoting and explaining the tax, voters didn't seem to understand the need for the tablets, which would have consumed about $62 million of the school district's share of the tax revenue.

The tablets would replace textbooks and other printed materials and prepare students for the technology they will encounter in the workplace. Because they are required by the state, money for the technology upgrades will have to come from the district's other depleted funds.

"We definitely need to do a better job of educating people about improving technology for kids," Manuel said.

The vote will leave the county without money to keep up with needed road improvements, said County Administrator Len Sossamon. And it deprives the county of millions in improvements to the county's airport and $11.5 million for an economic development fund — both of which would have helped bring enterprise to Hernando.

If a prospective business approached the county seeking financial incentives, Sossamon said, "I don't have the war chest for that. We would have to figure out some way to beg, borrow or steal that from the (county's) general fund.''

He also worried that the unwillingness of the public to spend money on the community would "send a signal" to potential investors.

So did Realtor Gary Schraut.

"People are always telling me we should run the county like a business," Schraut said. "Well, there's not a single successful business that doesn't invest in itself. This was a chance to invest in the county and the schools, and the people said it's not worth it."

Contact Dan DeWitt at dewitt@tampabay.com or Barbara Behrendt at bbehrendt@tampabay.com. Times staff writer Jeffrey S. Solochek also contributed to this report.