Jacob Ogles
Funding meant for West Shore Jr./Sr. High School just flunked with Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Governor vetoed a $5 million line item from the state budget that had been set aside for an expansion of the Brevard County public school.
The project was among the last major budget line items requested by former Sen. Randy Fine before he left the Legislature for a seat in Congress.
Fine, a Republican who represented the Space Coast in the Senate, had tried to get as much as $15 million in the state budget for the combined middle-high school campus, which was originally constructed in 1957 and has many students housed in portables almost that old.
“These portables, in most cases are more than 50-60 years old and are not conducive to student learning, are not safe and systems such as HVAC and IT regularly fail, despite district maintenance staff best efforts,” reads an appropriations request submitted by West Shore Principal Burt Clark.
“Our school also has one of the top science research programs in the state and nation, without fully functioning science labs. Due to some of these factors and seat limitations, we are forced to limit our enrollment numbers and deny deserving students the opportunity to attend our school. If we added a permanent building on campus we could increase enrollment, enhance our science research program and choral program and add a state-of-the art engineering and robotics lab.”
That proved a winning case with lawmakers, at least enough to secure $5 million in the budget. But it didn’t make the grade with the Governor, who killed the funding as part of some $600 million in line-item vetoes.
Notably, DeSantis and Fine were onetime political allies but fell out in the last two years after Fine rescinded an endorsement of the Governor and instead threw his support to President Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary.
After Fine’s election to the U.S. House, with Trump’s endorsement, he was succeeded by Sen. Debbie Mayfield, a former Senator and Representative who also switched from being a DeSantis backer to a Trump supporter.
The DeSantis administration, specifically Secretary of State Cord Byrd’s Office, tried to disqualify Mayfield from the Senate ballot claiming she could not serve because of term limits. But the state Supreme Court swatted down that act as both a misunderstanding of state term limits and of the ministerial role of the Division of Elections.
One comment
Bonnie Ida
June 30, 2025 at 6:55 pm
There is always funding for construction that has anything to do with police, sheriff and veterans. I mean headquarters, monuments, and training facilities. But a public school known for the high quality of its education in need of maintenance, space and labs? Crickets.