Rocky Hanna continues to be generous with raises. He gave himself 26.5% ($42,336) increase. Last year the superintendent pay was $159,988. This year, a whopping $202,324. That’s almost a full salary for a new teacher or a couple of paraprofessionals. Interestingly, raises in excess of the Florida Statute are to be voted on by a majority of the school board. We are unable to find where the superintendent’s raise went before the School Board.
The Impact Of Executive Raises
What makes our superintendent’s increase shocking is several factors. The most important is his steadfast statements that there is just no money for our teachers, bus drivers, and support staff. Yet, year after year we see school executives receiving thousands of dollars in raises.
Chris Petley, communications coordinator, is on the consent items for a $10,040 pay increase set to be voted on this coming up week (February 25th, 2025). We saw similar increases for school executives last year, which we published here.
However, these choices in raises also affect our students. Many of our neighbors have expressed concern for their ESE and higher need students. They have largely felt ignored and disregarded when it came to the needs of their families. Seeing the amount of taxpayer money go to school executives further isolates our neighbors.
Recently, we had a conversation with another neighbor who suggested instead of choosing the CLT (classical learning test) LCS could provide SAT prep classes to help improve the scores of students. Perhaps this raise could have paid for test prep for our graduates.
Our Trust In Our Elected School Board
The most concerning problem we have considered is located in the law. Florida Statute 145.19 outlines the limitations for the superintendent raises (*At the bottom of this article we will have the Statutes, how we interpret them, and the amount we calculated as the maximum total Hanna could receive). Anything outside of that has to be voted on by the governing body. This raises questions about the school board and the part they play in this. As elected officials, their job is to represent us. While their intent may be to represent our community the impact of the district leaves neighbors feeling like our elected officials have no power despite having five votes on the board.
We frequently hear from neighbors about their distrust in our local government. When it comes to the public schools, our neighbors feel as if they are not a priority, teachers and staff are not a priority, and students are not a priority.
Florida Statute 145.19
Florida statute 145.19 provides an equation and limitations for the annual increase for elected county officials. This is how we interpret this statute. There are four numbers that when multiplied in a specific order will give a percentage increase.
- Salary rate: 0.01575 (provided in Florida Statute 1001.47)
- Initial factor: 1.292
- Cumulative Annual Factor: 4.1336 (we found that here on page)
- Annual Factor: 1 + 0.03 (for this option statute says to choose the lesser between the Department of Management Services or 7%. The Department of Management Services to states it at 3% and this is confirmed in the Office of Economic Research Report).
Multiply all those together in the order listed above and the product is 0.0866 or 8.7%. Rocky Hanna made $159,988 last year. He should have received $13,861.05 this year (totaling 173,849.05). Per statute the limitation is a percentage which is the above equation.
However, during his re-election year he did not take a raise. According to the equation listed on the Office of Economic Research his salary would be $195,615.78 if he had taken the raise last year (this is due to the fact that the equation continues despite him not taking a raise last year. If he wasn’t re-elected, the new superintendent could be caught up to the appropriate pay). This report states multiple times that it doesn’t account for certain factors and that they encourage school district officials to independently compute the salary figures in this report.
The question for our neighbors: do we believe our superintendent should be allowed to deny a raise in election season and then make up for it after? Clearly it is confusing. It also results in discrepancies which strains the taxpayers and removes resources from our students and school staff. Furthermore, the system in place (our school board) to check the math of our district did not do that. We rely on our school board to hold the district accountable to the laws and policies in place as well as create policies which protect our community.
6 Responses
As we close another school year, I find myself reflecting on the events that unfolded—both through personal experience and conversations with other parents and teachers. Across social media and within our communities, one theme continues to emerge: leadership’s consistent failure to acknowledge and address the real issues affecting our schools.
Whether it’s student safety, inadequate attention to IEPs and ESE programs, inconsistent discipline, crumbling teacher morale, or a lack of transparency and communication, the district’s response has been the same—silence, deflection, or outright dismissal.
Frankly, none of this should surprise anyone. This leadership has a well-documented history of ignoring the voices of parents, students, and teachers alike. While they claim to welcome engagement, they routinely shut down those who dare to raise concerns. In fact, our district’s School Board—unlike any other governing body—blocks taxpayers, parents, teachers, and students from commenting on their official Facebook page during board meetings. Public comments submitted via email aren’t read aloud for transparency; instead, they’re quietly “passed along” to board members, away from public scrutiny. This is not just tone-deafness—it’s suppression.
Time and again, we see policies and procedures selectively enforced. Leadership hides behind loopholes and exceptions, manipulating the rules to serve their own ends. We’ve watched the Superintendent disregard board directives, break commitments, or ask for forgiveness only after public backlash—only to repeat the same behavior. Even board members are beginning to realize they’ve been misled and manipulated for years.
During multiple election cycles, the Superintendent boasted about refusing a raise—as if that alone proved fiscal responsibility. Yet, following his final campaign, he quietly awarded himself a $42,000 pay increase. That matters because, under Florida’s retirement system, pensions are based on the average of the highest five years of salary. That timing isn’t accidental—it’s calculated. It begs the question: who else in the executive suite is planning a golden parachute on the public’s dime?
Meanwhile, we’re expected to forget all of this the next time he hosts a Second Harvest food drive—for the very LCS employees struggling to make ends meet under the district’s own oppressive pay structure. That one annual raise is double what many cafeteria staff earn in a year to feed and support their own families.
While district dollars flow into artificial turf, rebranding campaigns, executive perks, and bloated positions with inflated salaries, there’s somehow never enough left for bus drivers, support staff, veteran teachers, or student programs like IEP/ESE support or tutoring. Did you know 80% of the money parents pay for after-school care is taken by the district—away from the very schools that provide the service? Principals have pleaded to keep that money on campus, but leadership remains unmoved, unresponsive, and unaccountable.
And perhaps the most urgent concern—the one they refuse to talk about—is the escalating behavioral crisis in our schools. This year alone, teachers have been assaulted by students, and the number of arrests involving guns, drugs, and violent threats has risen sharply. These are not isolated incidents. The evidence is mounting, and the district can no longer deny the truth: our schools are becoming unsafe, and leadership is doing nothing meaningful to stop it.
I applaud the mother who recently spoke out at a board meeting about her son being assaulted—only to be punished for defending himself. I’ve heard too many stories like hers. Instead of addressing violence, the system tells victims to take the long way to class or ignore abuse. If you fight back to defend yourself, you’re the one who gets punished. As parents, we teach our children to stand up for themselves—to act with courage and conviction. But this district has created a culture that rewards silence, punishes resistance, and constantly ignores parents’ phone calls and emails. It’s backward and dangerous, but that’s the culture they have built.
And then there’s the hypocrisy. The district is quick to criticize charter and private schools for their failures, expansion, or funding models, yet turns a blind eye to its own decades-long record of failure. One district-run school failed for 66 consecutive years. Where was the outrage? Why is failure acceptable when it’s under their control? Because for this leadership, it’s not about outcomes—it’s about power and money.
Let’s be honest: their idea of a “world-class education” is one where they protect their pensions, preserve their influence, and lower the bar for everyone else. That’s why so many parents and teachers are walking away—because the district walked away from them first.
They’re not building a better school system. They’re running a masterclass in mismanagement with manipulation.
And we’re the ones paying the price.
On behalf of many who no longer feel heard and Who’s Had Enough,
A Public School Parent
Interesting to see an education-destroying pro-voucher school person parade as a concerned parent. This diatribe spent too much time on complaints, only to back-handedly say that voucher(for-profit) schools are doing it better. They have all the same problems, AND have to turn over profit (=money from the state) to their owners.
This is no emotional outpouring from a local parent, it is designed to garner support for the system that is destroying our education system.
One has to ask, how does someone who clearly dislikes children justify a career focused on governing them?
file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/96/06/1358C263-ACBF-42E2-8E23-B6BC94E37EBD/ScreenRecording_10-28-2025%2010-43-33_1.mov
Unfortunately, the way it is linked we can’t see what you’ve sent.
Sorry about that. It starts at the one minute mark
https://youtu.be/4fyw9dHR17g
Thank you ????