The County Commission had delayed the measure to 2026 and is now ordered to move it to the November ballot.
Hillsborough County Public Schools can ask voters for a property tax increase this November, a judge ruled on Friday.
Circuit Judge Emily Peacock issued an order saying the Hillsborough County Commission must meet no later than Aug. 13 to adopt a resolution that would place the school district’s property tax referendum on the ballot. The commission’s next scheduled meeting is Wednesday.
Peacock’s ruling settles a dispute that was triggered by the County Commission’s decision on July 17 to delay the taxing referendum by two years.
The referendum would ask voters to pay $1 per $1,000 of taxable real estate value, with most of the proceeds going to supplement district employees’ pay. The County Commission, citing concerns about rising housing costs, voted 4-3 to postpone the measure until 2026.
District leaders said they need the money now to ease teacher shortages. They also said there was no guarantee that the commission would schedule the vote in 2026 or ever. The district sued the commission on July 23.
Since then, the two sides have filed motions offering various interpretations of laws and legal opinions surrounding the school taxing question.
In a written statement Friday, Superintendent Van Ayres thanked the judge.
“Every child deserves the best classroom experience possible and that’s what this (property tax) is about,” he said. “We look forward to having a conversation with voters about the importance of the referendum in the months ahead.”
In their court motions, the county’s attorneys argued that because state law mentions county commissions in the taxing process, it is logical to assume they have a degree of authority. The school district countered that the county government is needed to oversee the taxing referendum, but has no say in when it can take place.
Peacock took her guidance from a 2020 case in Indian River County, in which the school district wanted to place a tax renewal question on the August ballot but the County Commission wanted to wait for the general election in November.
The judge in that case wrote that “the commissioners have no discretion to choose a different date, but must perform the ministerial act of calling for an election as directed by the School Board, including the date requested.”
Since that time, the state law has been amended so that the tax referendum must occur in November.
Lawyers for the commission had cited other rulings and opinions, including a case in Hernando County that the school district lost.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Josh Wostal, who initiated the move to delay the tax, said Friday evening that “this is absolutely a case of a judge that imposed her own bias into her ruling and didn’t even allow for a day in court.”
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