With voting already underway in Florida’s August 23 election, officials in a county where about one in four voters is Hispanic are scrambling to fix the inaccurate Spanish translation of a question on the ballot about a proposed school tax.
The Broward School District—the nation’s sixth largest, serving 271,517 students—is asking voters to double the tax rate to help cover the costs of raising teacher salaries, hiring additional security staff, and strengthening mental health programs.
The proposal would increase the school tax from one half a “mill” to a full mill. [A “mill” refers to the millage rate, or the amount of property value used to calculate local property taxes.] But the Spanish version of that question translated “one mill” into “one million” and said the funding would pay for an administrative person who oversees resources, not for school security officers. It also incorrectly translated “essential instruction” as “essential expenditures.”
The inaccuracies were made public when a Spanish-speaking voter contacted the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The school district sent a new translation to the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office. The revision will be posted at polling locations and early voting sites, and it will also appear in future vote-by-mail ballots.
“The Supervisor of Elections Office has also placed the information on its website. The district will share the notification through all its distribution channels to ensure the public is informed about the revision,” said District Spokesperson Keyla Concepción. “The district appreciates the collaboration with the Supervisor of Elections Office in clarifying the Spanish version of the referendum question as stated in the ballot.”
Read Full Article from South Florida Sun Sentinel (08/11/22)
Author: Travis, Scott
News summaries © copyright 2022 SmithBucklin
