Gainesville city officials continue to court the Gainesville school board to win its support for the city’s tax allocation district, but the school board’s chairman said the latest proposal needs more compromise.

After the board has voted twice to back out of a 2006 agreement with the Gainesville City Council to help fund redevelopment projects in Gainesville’s Midtown and downtown, Ken Bleakly, the city’s TAD consultant, proposed a new agreement to the Gainesville school board Monday.

In April, the board voted 3-2 to not participate in the tax district.

The school board’s initial withdrawal on March 27 cut nearly 65 percent of the Gainesville redevelopment district’s funding, but did leave open the possibility of future school board participation in Gainesville’s tax allocation district.

School board Chairman David Syfan said he’s still wary of the city’s pitch.

“The proposed agreement is better,” he said. “Whether the proposed agreement will be sufficient to get a majority of the school board to vote for it, I don’t know.”

Gainesville schools Superintendent Merrianne Dyer and board Chairman David Syfan have cited concerns about how the redevelopment of the roughly 270-acre blighted district would affect the school system’s finances, future enrollment and representation in governing TAD projects.

With a $3.6 million deficit and possible state cuts looming, Gainesville school board officials have said they are cautiously reviewing the city’s TAD agreement before voluntarily forgoing any property tax revenue used to operate city schools.

Under their 2006 agreement, city and county governments and the school system still would get property tax revenue from the 270-acre district, but revenues above the Dec. 31, 2006, taxable value would fund redevelopment projects in the area.

Redevelopment usually increases property values and resulting tax revenues.

The city’s new proposal, Bleakly told the board, would use property tax revenue as of Dec. 31 as a baseline for the tax allocation district rather than the 2006 revenue figures.

Bleakly said also the new proposal would limit the district’s new residential developments to 800 units, 70 percent of which would be limited to two bedrooms or fewer to reduce the number of children the Gainesville system would be required to educate.

And the new agreement would provide for a third school system representative to serve on the city’s nine-member TAD advisory committee. The city’s previous proposal asked for two school system representatives — Dyer and Syfan — to serve on the committee that dictates TAD projects.

School board member Sammy Smith serves as the board’s finance chairman and said he may soon meet with city officials to discuss details of the new proposal.

Syfan said the board as a whole has not yet taken a position on the city’s latest proposal.

“The next step, I guess, is that the school board needs to discuss the TAD and see whether there’s a quorum to participate in the TAD,” Syfan said. “To me, just because the city offers something doesn’t necessarily mean we have to take accept it. I mean, we can haggle back and forth until maybe we can come to an agreement.”