Steve Shimp, Chair of Lee County’s Independent Sales Surtax Oversight Committee, or ISSOC, recently gave an update on the half penny sales tax that was passed as a referendum in 2018. The half penny sales tax was meant to fund the acquisition, construction, renovation, equipping and financing of public school facilities and technology for ten years.
Shimp shared what has come from the surtax so far.
"Through June of this year, we've taken in over $440 million in sales tax. We spent short of $300 million," said Shimp. "You may ask the question, how does that work? Well, there are timelines in terms of those funds going out the door as they're committed, and they're not counted until they’re in hand."
He continued, "Overall we've seated 4500 students with sales tax money in new seats. In addition to that, the existence of older facilities are either being replaced and renovated."
He said the age and obsolescence of our school system is still a work in progress.
"In terms of the age and condition of schools, eight of our schools currently fall within being 40 to 49 years old, seven are 50 to 59; 21 are more than 60 years old," he said. "Those statistics on their face can be a bit deceiving because considerable funds have been put into renovating and bringing existing structures up to standard so that our students are not in truly 60-year old buildings, they're in 60-year old structures. Many of them have been hardened and made more safe for the environment and that sort of thing. But they're old."
Shimp also said improved security and technology systems at the schools are also receiving attention, including perimeter fencing, cameras and monitoring technology, and nimbleness during the pandemic.
"A little bit of a story. During COVID, we were able to field more than 10,000 Chromebooks that would not have been in the hands of the students had we not had the money to be able to move quickly. We are in the top 1% of districts in the country, in terms of the availability for in-the-hands technology for the students."
He said the tax will help expand and re-vitalize the school system as Lee County continues to grow.
"We have 100,000 students in the district. We are the eighth largest district in the state. We're the 32nd largest district in the country. And we're still growing. We've added 19,000 students since 2008. And that growth curve continues to project to be larger and larger."
Shimp then talked about the importance of this tax to the future health of the Lee County school system.
"The look ahead, we anticipate that there'll be another 15,000 students by 2031. And there literally are no other funding sources on the horizon. Long-term, this sales tax will reduce the amount of debt service that we have to spend at a district level."
So while no one likes to pay more taxes, it looks like the half penny sales surtax has proved its value to Lee County.
