Lee schools' budget to surpass $1.5B for the first time

Lee County School District’s spending will top $1.5 billion for the first time, according to budget estimates released this week.

On Tuesday, School Board members got their first look at the fiscal 2007 budget, which district analysts project will total $1.56 billion in all, up from $1.3 billion last year. The money — local property taxes comprise two-thirds of it — will pay to educate the nearly 80,000 students expected to attend district schools beginning Aug. 8. The district will grow by as many as 5,300 children, making Lee one of the state’s fastest-growing districts.

Half the budget, or $717 million, is designated to tackle that growth head-on, spurred in part by a $100 million boost from the state. Known as the capital budget, the money is intended only for infrastructure projects, mostly going toward building new facilities. When school resumes this fall, the district will open one new elementary school, one new middle school and 17 additions to existing elementary schools. During the year, three elementary schools, two transportation facilities and the permanent home of East Lee County High School also will be under construction. And the district headquarters, a $50 million project, will have administrators moving into the renovated Metro Mall in May 2007.

Although administrators are preparing for the possibility that growth may slow — though not stop — Lee Superintendent James Browder said the budget reflects that the district is still playing catch-up. He pointed out that there are still 400 portable classrooms countywide.

“We’ve never in the history of this district had enough seats for the children who are here,” he told board members Tuesday.

The extra money for building from the state — more than the Legislature has given Lee County in years — came in large part to help deal with the effects of the class-size amendment. The mandate, which passed in 2002 by statewide referendum, gets stricter this year. Each school must comply with class-size averages, and this year the district is holding funds in reserve to hire more teachers if needed. If they don’t meet the limits, school districts could face financial penalties of $5 million or more.

“The incentive to hit the class-size number is serious,” Browder said.

Browder and School Board members have long said the burden of growth and the class-size amendment together are straining Lee’s financial outlook, but they declined to push for a sales tax referendum last year after learning impact fees would go up.

Starting this year, impact fees will offset a little more of the cost to build new schools. The district is set to take in almost $60 million in impact fees, which are one-time payments on new homes to offset the cost of growth.

But the cost to build schools is also rising, both here and around the state. The board recently approved hiking the price of the Metro Mall project. And the Volusia County School Board on Wednesday will vote on whether to accept a $99 million price tag for a new high school in Orange City, whereas similar-sized South Fort Myers High School, which opened just last August, cost Lee County $36.7 million.

“We are in real serious trouble in relation to the products we are building,” Browder said.

Included in the capital budget is a $51.8 million debt service payment. And it’s one that is likely to continue far into the future, according to a sober estimate: The district is $983 million in debt, according to budget director Ami Desamours.

Browder said the district is still far below state-mandated limits on borrowing, and the district isn’t planning another bond issue until 2010.