DeSoto School Board Votes on Non-Agenda Item: Raising Taxes

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It's routine in that it happens every summer: DeSoto County School Board, like the thousands across the land, must create a budget for the upcoming year. After figuring how much money it takes to educate the 2009-2010 crop of kids, it caclulates the millage it must ask the tax collector to levy upon land- and homeowners. The millage is then advertised, and if approved, the tax collecter rounds up the money it generates and sends a check to Tallahassee. There it is massaged (so to speak) and the good governor remits the funds back to the locals with both some additions and some subtractions.
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Well, that's apparently the job the board was doing Tuesday night -- examining the draft of the proposed budget and setting the millage to fund it. The meeting wasn't routine in that not a single general citizen -- well one, and even he confessed to being surprised -- seemed to know this fiscal-year milestone was on the agenda.

Let me say this again: This important bit of business never appeared on the DeSoto County School District's published agenda. Citizens were not notified. No one outside an inner circle of boardmembers and administrators knew the time and place to discuss the next-year's tax rate.

And, making the whole operation a bit more hugger-mugger, even the newspaper was not notified that the public's business -- tax business -- was scheduled to be conducted. (I got wind of this from a blog that I follow. The writer focuses mostly on journalism, but he takes occasional side trips into the schools, which I why I recommend the site. )

But back to my concerns: I'm new to Florida, so I might have this all wrong. But I'm under the impression that public bodies have to do their business "in the sunshine." They aren't allowed to do things like award contracts, spend money, or set tax rates without some public notice -- hopefully accompanied by discussion. Am I wrong about this?