Gray Rohrer
The Florida House put $500 million more into its funding for the Florida Education Finance Program, the state’s main funding source for K-12 schools, as part of its Tuesday night budget offer to the Senate, bringing the total to $24.2 billion, or $1.7 billion more than the current year.
The funding is $200 million more than the Senate’s original budget, but includes a provision decried by Democrats that would prevent 12 school districts that defied Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ban on mask mandates last fall from receiving any of that money.
The original Senate budget doesn’t contain that provision.
Rep. Randy Fine, a Brevard County Republican leading the House PreK-12 education budget negotiations, said all districts would be receiving more than they would under the original House spending plan if it didn’t include the $200 million plan, which he calls the “Putting Parents First” adjustment.
“This is a better offer even with the adjustment than our original offer had we not done it,” Fine said. “So all of this nonsense and ‘Woe is me, boo-hoo-hoo’ — you simply can’t make the argument anymore if you can do fundamental mathematics.”
But some districts are still concerned about the withholding of funds.
Leon County Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna said the provision, which is aimed at district administrators with six-figure salaries, would hit his school safety coordinator position and unduly punishes the district for trying to keep students safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is wrong. It does nothing but add to the divisiveness that we face not only in our country but in the state of Florida. There is no consensus, there is no coming to the middle,” Hanna said. “You’re saying no money is going to be lost? I don’t buy that.”
Fine shrugged off Hanna’s comments.
“I listened to him as attentively as he listened to parents over the last couple of years,” Fine said.
In other areas of the K-12 schools budget, the House inserted $40 million for a grant program to help pay for transportation for parents seeking to send their children to a school other than the public school they’re zoned for. The provision is tied to HB 5101, a budget conforming bill, but the funding wasn’t included in the House’s original budget.
“They want to choose to go to a different school and they don’t have transportation – this creates some funding,” Fine said. “It’s sort of individualized transportation.”
