3 days ago
Public education funding agreed to; policy still outstanding
The Stone Education building on the Florida State University campus is the home of its College of Education. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix)
In a time when the Legislature is trying to pare back the size of the state budget, lawmakers agreed this week to pump more than $29 billion into K-12 education, a $945 million increase over current year spending
Per student funding would increase by $142.74, to $9,130, under a plan House and Senate budget conferees agreed to this week, a 1.59% increase from the current fiscal year.
'It's adequate, it's historic, it's all of the things. It's really good,' House budget chief Rep. Lawrence McClure said of per student funding.
Much of the K-12 education budget increase, 71%, would be funded by local property taxes, Politico first reported.
Florida's growing school choice program, in which state dollars can be used for private school tuition or homeschooling, has decreased public schools' share of enrollment.
'I think we can all agree that the public school population is declining. The schools still are open and operating, so that expense is there, and if there's fewer students being there then money comes from somewhere [else],' Senate budget chief Sen. Ed Hooper told reporters this week.
The spending agreement was made as legislators met in an extended session dedicated to crafting a budget for state fiscal year 2025-26, which begins July 1. The extension was necessary because legislative leadership couldn't agree during the 60-day regular session on how much money to spend and ways to reduce taxes.
As part of the K-12 agreement, the chambers agreed to allocate an extra $101.6 million toward teacher salary increases statewide, targeting an area Florida has lagged in. Last year, salary increase allocations went up by about $200 million. Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed about $250 million for teacher and personnel salary increases this year.
According to the National Education Association, Florida is 50th in the nation for average teacher salaries.
Accelerated courses like Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate were facing reduced funding under earlier proposals, but pushback from school officials and constituents made a difference. Ultimately, the programs are funded at a rate consistent with the current year, $596 million.
The chambers have agreed to infuse an additional $6 million into the Schools of Hope program. Schools of Hope are charter schools opened near struggling schools.
While lawmakers agreed to extend the session to address the budget, they have found creative ways to use the spending blueprint to readdress substantive legislation that died during the regular 60-day session. That policy-focused legislation will be included in what's called a 'conforming bill.' Unlike the budget, which expires in a year, conforming bills make permanent changes to statutes.
As of publication, a K-12 education conforming bill had not been released.
The chambers have publicly discussed reviving a bill that died during the regular 60-day session to allow Schools of Hope to open inside persistently low-performing public schools or on the property.
Lawmakers are looking to adjust how school choice scholarships are reimbursed as more students use the option. Throughout the session, school administrators and legislators expressed concerns about how and when money is paid to scholarship recipients or schools, saying it was impossible to track where some students were enrolled.
'Obviously, the accounting for the scholarships has not gone well. We're trying to come up with a way that the money does follow the child, the student, and instead of reporting quarterly I think we are going to report monthly,' Hooper said.
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