The Sarasota County School Board and two county taxpayers have filed a lawsuit against Tax Collector Mike Moran and the constitutional office he controls alleging “unlawful diversion” of taxpayer funds that were supposed to support local students.
The suit was filed Friday in the Circuit Court of the 12th Judicial Circuit in Sarasota County.
At the center of the dispute is a recent change by Moran in who pays the cost of collecting a voter-approved property tax that raises millions of dollars each year for Sarasota County Schools. This is on top of the money generated through the school board’s regular property tax…