The School Board signed off on the last construction change orders for its two newest K-8 schools on Sept. 8, and both of them were about a tax bill the district did not have to pay.

Sabal Crest Academy and Magnolia Oaks Academy were both awarded to STG Contracting Group, Inc. at the same board meeting on June 11, 2024, and both have now run through five change orders. Change Order #5 adds $105,209.23 at Sabal Crest and $166,693.19 at Magnolia Oaks. Both appear on the district’s list of schools.

The district calls the thing those two change orders close out an Owner Direct Purchase Program. What it means is that the district bought the steel and the air handlers and the roofing itself instead of letting the contractor buy them, because a school district does not pay sales tax on what it buys and a contractor does. The items call what that leaves in the district’s hands a tax savings, and they put a number on it.

If your child is at either school, none of this changes a bell time or a bus route. It is the money side closing behind a building that is already in use.

The figures the items print

Here is the Sabal Crest sentence, as the agenda item has it:

The Owner Direct Purchase Program for the Sabal Crest Academy (K-8 “RR”) project accounted for a total of $19,159,985.00 in Owner Direct Purchase, which realized a total tax savings to the School District of $1,119,506.09.

And here is the Magnolia Oaks sentence:

The Owner Direct Purchase Program for the Magnolia Oaks Academy (K-8 “QQ”) project accounted for a total of $18,629,684.83 in Owner Direct Purchase, which realized a total tax savings to the School District of $1,119,506.09.

The two purchase totals are about half a million dollars apart, and the savings figure printed beside them is the same to the cent. Add the two purchase totals together and you get roughly $37.8 million of school building materials bought straight by the district across the two campuses, which is the sum of the two figures quoted above rather than anything the district published.

The Sabal Crest item carries one more pair of numbers that do not sit easily beside its own change order. It says the district “has executed additional Owner Direct Purchases in the amount of $99,253.98 which realizes a tax savings in the amount of $1,151,249.01,” while the change order the board was asked to approve is $105,209.23.

South Woods, nine months after the doors opened

The third item in the same section closed out the classroom expansion at South Woods Elementary, and that one gave money back.

D.E. Scorpio Corporation was awarded the job at the Sept. 24, 2024 board meeting. Change Order #1 came in May 2025 and #2 in August 2025. Change Order #3, marked final, is a deduction of $31,380.87, made up of $846.98 credited back on owner direct purchases and $30,533.89 of a construction allowance that went unused. On that job the district bought $1,860,093.84 of materials directly and the item puts the sales tax avoided at $112,355.62. The money came out of the half-cent sales surtax.

The certificate of occupancy was issued Dec. 8, 2025. Final acceptance went to the board on Sept. 8, 2026, nine months later, which is the ordinary shape of a construction close-out rather than a delay in anything a child uses. All five of these items sat on the consent agenda, which is the part of the meeting one motion covers in a block.

What is in front of the board next

The board workshops four topics on Tuesday, Sept. 22. Charter academic updates for Treaty Oaks Preparatory Academy and St. Augustine Public Montessori School. Safety updates. A VPK performance metric. And an item headed “Retiree Health Insurance Premium Rate Increase.”

That last one is the only one of the four with a dollar sign implied in the title, and the agenda item for it is blank. Background Information, Fiscal Impact and Recommendation are all empty on the posted item, so a retired teacher reading the agenda this weekend cannot find out from it how much more the premium would be.