Palm Beach County Schools Face $100 Million Budget Hit as Enrollment Falls, Ahead of November Tax Vote

As students returned to Palm Beach County classrooms this fall, the district is confronting a budget squeeze tied directly to shrinking enrollment. Superintendent Mike Burke says the district lost roughly 7,000 students last year and is projecting another decline of about 2,900 students this year, a combined hit of roughly $100 million to the budget, since state funding is calculated on a per-student basis.

The district is pointing voters toward a familiar fix: the one-mill property tax referendum first approved in 2018 and renewed twice since, which Palm Beach County voters will decide again on November 3. The tax, unchanged from its original rate of $1 for every $1,000 of a home's taxable value, generates more than $200 million a year for schools. If renewed, it would run through June 2031. About half of that revenue goes directly to teacher pay through what the district calls "referendum supplements". This would mean $1,000 more for teachers after one year, an additional $5,000 for those with five to nine years of experience, and $10,000 more for teachers with ten-plus years in the district.

The district did reach a separate raise agreement with its teacher's union in late July, offering a 2.187% increase funded partly through a new state allocation, though state rules limited that particular funding to classroom teachers with ten or more years of experience.

In response to the decline in enrollment, the district has opened a dedicated enrollment office and stepped-up recruitment efforts aimed at drawing students from outside Palm Beach County, as it competes with neighboring districts and private schools for enrollment.

Reported with details from WPTV.

Reported with details from WPTV.