Master Facility Plan
10 Reasons Why it is the Right Plan for Duval County
1. School safety and security are at the top of the priority list for every school.
3. The plan removes more than 400 portables, eliminating most, if not all, portables in the district.
5. The District conducted more than 20 community meetings and many small-group meetings. An online survey received more than 1,600 responses. The plan represents the diverse voices of the community.
7. The plan is founded on a comprehensive and detailed engineering and site inspection of all school campuses.
9. The plan is based on financial guidance from external analysts with the PFM group, a group that also advises the City of Jacksonville.
2. The plan eliminates $1 billion of maintenance issues expected over the next five years.
4. The plan includes a methodology for equitable funding for charter schools using similar criteria driving funding to repair traditional schools.
6. The plan will consolidate schools, reducing the number of schools and student seats, while building new schools in areas of growth.
8. The district analyzed long-term enrollment trends and anticipated the impact of future charter schools and other choice options.
10. A citizen oversight committee will review all expenditures in accordance with the plan.
The Duval County School Board approved the Master Facility Plan on July 2, 2019. Earlier this year, the School Board approved a resolution to ask voters for a half-cent sales tax to implement this plan. The School Board’s request to place it on the ballot on Nov. 3 was approved by the City Council on April 14, 2020, as part of a legal settlement.
District 3
Financial Implications: How a 1/2 Penny Adds Up to Great Schools for Duval
Duval County Public Schools has engaged with financial advisors from PFM LLC to forecast revenue projections and debt service costs of a half-cent sales tax to fund the school district’s master facility plan. PFM is a company that also advises the city.
The School Board has discussed bonding (borrowing) $500 million to jump start the highest priorities in the facility plan in each of the seven district board member regions, from Mandarin to the Northside and from the beach to Baldwin.
PFM analyzed the debt service expectations and the 15-year revenue expectations and presented this information to the School Board on June 19, 2019.
Using estimates from the 2018 Local Government Financial Information Handbook, PFM demonstrated that the proposed tax would generate more than $1.7 billion in revenue. In addition to the sales tax revenue, the district would have significant savings from the elimination of maintenance backlog costs. These savings may also be used to fund the plan.
The details of the financial plan are in this report.