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Orange County Public Schools, Florida

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Taxes Y
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Budget Y
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Meetings Y
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Elected Officials Y
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Administrative Officials Y
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Contracts Y
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Audits Y
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Public records Y
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Academics Y
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Background checks Y
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Transparency grading process


Orange County School District is a school district in Florida. The school system has a total attendance of 172,943 students for the 2010-2011 school year.[1] The Florida Department of Education provides a list of past, current, and future school enrollment totals for each district.

Website evaluation

In 2011 Orange County Public Schools earned a Sunny Award for having a perfect website transparency score.

This website was most recently reviewed 2013-02-17.

Main article: Evaluation of Florida school district websites

The good

  • Budget
    • The most current budget is listed.
    • Budgets are archived for 6 years.[2]
  • Administrative Officials
    • Department heads are listed for each department.[3]
    • Contact information for administrative officials is provided including a mailing address, phone number, and personalized email.
  • Elected Officials
    • Elected officials are listed with a mailing address, phone number and personalized email.[4]
  • Meetings
    • Meeting minutes are archived for 11 years.[5]
    • Meeting agendas are archived for 11 years.[6]
    • A meeting calendar is available and names the times and locations of public meetings.[7]
    • Meeting videos are available.[8]
  • Audits
    • The most recent audit is posted.
    • Audits dating back to 2004 are available.[9]
  • Contracts
    • Bids and RFPs are posted online.
    • Employee contracts are available.[10]
    • Approved contract statements are provided for vendors.[11]
  • Public Records
    • The public information officer is identified and maintained by the records custodian. This person provides a mailing address, phone number and personalized email.[12]
    • A fee schedule for documents is provided.
  • Taxes
    • Tax revenues are broken down by federal, state, and local funding in the budget.
    • Local taxes, like property taxes, are available online.[13]
  • Academics
    • Academic performance reports for the school are posted online.[14][15]
  • Background Checks
    • The criminal background check policy and teacher certification requirements are posted online.[16]

The bad

School board

The school board controls school property, establishes, organizes, and operates the schools of the district, including: establishing schools, adopting enrollment plans, providing for school elimination and consolidation, cooperating with school boards of adjoining districts in maintaining schools, maintaining the school year schedule and other more specific duties as outlined in the Florida statute. [17]

It operates, controls and supervises the district's public schools as well as determines the rate of school district taxes, with the option of two or more school districts operating and financing educational programs together.

The Orange County School board has eight members. Seven members are elected for four-year terms by the electors in their district. The eighth is elected by the county as a whole and serves as chairman. [18][19] The Chairman and Vice Chairman are elected annually in November. [20] The chairman presides over meetings and the vice chairman takes over the chairman's duties in the chairman's absence. [20]

Board members earn annual salaries of $37,000, the same as a newly-hired teacher.[21]

Ronald Blocker [22] is the district's superintendent, a position he has held since 2000. The Florida Association of District School Superintendents has named him 2011 Florida Superintendent of the Year.[23]

Teacher contracts

Gabriel Berrio contract to rebuild the school by 2011 Cynthia Haupt Lauren Traeger

School Budget

In the 2010-2011 fiscal year, the School District's total revenue was $1,230,946,888 and its expenditures totaled $1,348,993,241. Including transfers and other funds, revenue and expenditures equaled each other at $1,479,699,658.[24]. During the 2009-10 school year, the county received $30,239,650 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.

In July 2009 the Orange County School Board rejected a property tax increase in a 4-3 vote that would have yielded an extra $24 million a year for the school district. [25] The district's main source of revenue is the state, which provided 42% of total revenues in the 2011 fiscal year, down from 43% in 2008.[26]

Property taxes as a source of local revenue declined from FY 2008 to FY 2011, from $613,341,902 to $561,464,543.[27] In fall 2010, however, citizens voted to levy a 1 mill property tax increase to cover operating expenditures.[28]

Other sources of non-property tax revenue include:

Source Estimated Revenue 2007-2008 Estimated Revenue 2010-2011
Florida Education Finance Program $342,459,613 $294,183,041
Categorical Funding $255,181,346 $264,919,428
Workforce Development (WFDFP) $35,495,964 $30,217,305
Gross Receipts Tax (Public Education Capital Outlay Maintenance) $12,543,214 $6,742,707
Discretionary Lottery $8,737,525 $497,941
Transportation $30,223,276 $27,474,582
Miscellaneous $22,676,457 $476,338
Total 707,317,395 624,511,343

In addition, there are currently enrolled 172,943 students in the district, an increase from 170,036 during the 2008-2009 school year.[29]

Mill Revenue

Below are the mill rates collected by the school district:[30]

Source Millage Rate 2009-2010 Millage Rate 2010-2011 Estimated Revenue
Required Local Effort 5.425 5.396 $533,223,398
Basic Discretionary Local Effort 0.748 0.748 $73,261,572
Critical Needs Operating 0.000 0.250 $22,253,096
Capital Improvement 1.500 1.500 $151,366,742
Total 7.673 7.894 $768,329,385

Academic Performance

During the 2010-2011 academic year, the county fell from an "A" to a "B" rating. Ten schools lost their "A" grades and three earned an "F". 77 percent of district schools earned an "A" or "B." Charter schools made up two-thirds of those receiving "F"s.[31]

2007-2011

Below is a chart of the school's grade based on the student's performance of the statewide test called the FCAT.[32] To see results, click "show".

Unions

The Orange County Classroom Teachers Association (CTA) and the Orange Education Support Professionals Association (OESPA) are the unions for this district.[33][34] The school district uses the Collaborative Bargaining Leadership Team (CBLT) to handle all negotiations with the unions. [35] Discussions of salary and fringe benefits between the unions and school district are automatically reopened every year. [36]

On April 22nd 2009 the District asked the CBLT to accept that there are insufficient funds for step increases or raises in 2009. When the CTA members turned down the agreement and declared an impasse, requiring intervention from the Public Education Relations Commission. [37] The impasse hearing was held on June 22nd, 2009 and is currently awaiting resolution by the Special Magistrate. [33]

Lobbying

Main article: Florida government sector lobbying

Taxpayer-funded lobbying is the practice of government entities using public funds to lobby. This occurs at all levels of government: it can be at the federal level or occur at local level with cities and counties, for example. These activities are hard to track because of the broad nature of lobbying, among other reasons. The issues lobbied for by governments can be diverse, but school lobbying typically deals with issues close to the school district or school board.

In July 2009, Sunshine Review submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the 27 Florida school districts with lobbyists registered for 2009 with the Florida legislature. [38] The results of the information requests are included in Florida school districts lobbying totals. (For information on the project or to start your own, see the project page.)

Orange County Public Schools is active in lobbying. The school district pays membership dues to the Florida School Boards Association, a government sector lobbying association.[39]

Representation

The school district has employed the services of lobbying firms Emergent Design and Development, Mixon and Associates,[40] and JEJ & Associates.[41]The agreements made with the three firms, and an $8000 contract with Mixon and Associates,[40] total $98,000 spent on lobbying contracts since 2004.

Payments to lobbying firms since 2004

Orange County Public Schools has spent $18,000 on lobbying in 2009 (see Representation), which does not include membership dues to government sector lobbying associations.

Recent News

Chairman announces 5-part improvement plan

Chairman Sublette revealed a 5-part plan to improve district schools at the first annual "State of the School" address held on May 19. The 5- benchmarks are no "F" or "D" schools, 50% of 10th graders earning a 3 or higher on the FCAT's reading section within four years, raising the graduation rate from 79 percent to 90 percent by next year, closing the minority achievement gap in reading by 10 percent within four years and increasing the completion rate of those who pursue career and technical education programs to 84 percent.[42]

Recession's Impact

School district will solicit donors for money

In response to the State of Florida cutting appropriations to the Orange County School District, Chairman Sublette will solicit philanthropists and corporations for donations. Though the donations could not be used towards paying teachers' salaries, they could be used to purchase books, music and other school supplies. Possible donors include Disney and Lockheed Martin. Sublette is preparing for the next fiscal year, when the school district will lose $37 million in federal funding.[43]

Wells Fargo comes to district's financial rescue

The school district's $105 million debt deal was about to expire when Wells Fargo bought the debt and renegotiated terms with the district. In the case of an "adverse material event," however, in which the school's financial outlook changes, Wells Fargo could declare "an event of default." If that occurs, the district would have to repay the debt in six-month installments within five years.[44]

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ school enrollment
  2. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Budgets, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  3. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Staff Directory, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  4. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, School Board, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  5. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Current Meetings, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  6. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Archived Meetings, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  7. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Board Meeting Schedule, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  8. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Meeting Videos, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  9. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Audits, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  10. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Labor Relations, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  11. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Contracts, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  12. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, District Records, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  13. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Budgets, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  14. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Accountability, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  15. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Test Scores, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  16. ↑ Orange County Public Schools, Background Screening, Accessed: Feb 17, 2013
  17. ↑ School board powers and duties, Florida statute
  18. ↑ school board structure
  19. ↑ Board Elections
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Board Officers
  21. ↑ school board salaries
  22. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named sbm
  23. ↑ [1]
  24. ↑ Operating Budget FY 2011 (p. 11)
  25. ↑ "Many Florida school boards raising property taxes", The Miami Herald, 7/22/09
  26. ↑ state payment as percentage
  27. ↑ property tax revenue (p.16)
  28. ↑ voters approve property tax increase
  29. ↑ enrollment (p.9)
  30. ↑ mill rates within budget
  31. ↑ district loses "A" FCAT rating
  32. ↑ Florida School Accountability Reports
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Orange County Classroom Teachers Association
  34. ↑ Orange Education Support Professionals Association
  35. ↑ Collaborative Bargaining Leadership Team
  36. ↑ CTA Contract
  37. ↑ CTA Contract Bargaining
  38. ↑ Online Sunshine - Lobbying Information
  39. ↑ Florida School Boards Association members list
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Consulting Contracts for Orange County since 2004
  41. ↑ Invoices for Vendor Payments
  42. ↑ 5-part improvement plan
  43. ↑ school district soliciting donors for money
  44. ↑ Wells Fargo renegotiates debt deal


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