State education budget increases after shooting
School funding next academic year will be shaped by the Florida Legislature’s reaction to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
A new $88.7 billion state budget, which was released Thursday and is expected to be approved Sunday at the earliest, includes a $21.1 billion spending plan for the treatment would.”
Sen. Kelli Stargel defended the plan as a way to help people affected by another crisis that hit the state last year: Hurricane Irma. The bill includes $45.4 million in tax breaks for citrus farmers slammed by the storm.
“So much of this tax package, if you look at it, is going to the people who were very adversely affected by the hurricane,” Stargel said. for people, they 67 school districts. It would boost per-student funding by $101.50 during 2018-2019 to $7,408 and represents a $485 million increase in state funding and local property taxes.
A significant increase in school spending is tied to the Feb. 14 tragedy in which 17 students and faculty were killed and 17 others were wounded.
The annual school funding formula would include a new category for mentalhealth
Legislation allowing local governments to use hotel room taxes on infrastructure projects also was inserted into the tax cut plan.
Under current law, the so-called bed tax can be spent only on tourism marketing, convention centers, arenas, auditoriums, zoos and other tourist attractions.
But the bill will let Tourism Development Councils use some of those funds on road and sewer projects that benefit tourist attractions.
One of the final sticking points between House and Senate negotiators was in funding with $69 million. It would increase the “safe schools” program, which helps pay for school resource officers, to $162 million, a $97.5 million increase.
Outside the funding formula, the school districts also could apply for grants to improve the security of their campuses in a $98.9 million program.
But lawmakers pared Gov. Rick Scott’s request for an $18 million increase in health care funding.
House leaders agreed to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates for nursing homes by $25.7 million, to $130 million, and the nursing homes can use those funds to pay for new generators. Lawmakers have pressed for nursing homes to equip generators after 13 patients at a South Florida nursing home died in the wake of Hurricane Irma in sweltering heat after going three days without electricity.
Patient advocates say the additional funds should be required to pay for care, not new generators, but Senate funding for classroom supplies for teachers. Lawmakers backed an $8.8 million increase, which should boost the annual payments by about $50 to $300.
Sen. Bill Galvano, RBradenton, who helped develop a $400 million school-safety initiative, said the response to the Parkland tragedy became the “most important” issue facing the Legislature.
“It put everything else we were working on, on a back budget chief Rob Bradley defended the push for more money.
“We’re not going to apologize for one second about making sure there are sufficient funds in place to make sure that [nursing home patients] are taken care of,” said Bradley, R-Fleming Island.
There’s also $100 million for Florida Forever, a land conservation program that lawmakers have reduced deeply in recent years. When it began in 1999, it was $300 million each year, but after the Great Recession, the Legislature cut it severely. burner,” he said. “I feel we’ve done our best.”
He said one of the challenges was that the massacre occurred midway during the annual legislative session, forcing lawmakers to quickly develop a response without the normal lead time and preparation.
“It certainly has impacted the budget. A lot of projects have fallen out. And money had to be reprioritized. It’s not often that you go into session and have to make a $400 million adjustment midstream,” Galvano said.
In other areas of the budget, charter schools would receive more than $145 million for renovation and maintenance work in the budget. Public schools would receive $50 million.
The final negotiations on the budget also resulted in more funding for several higher-education initiatives. like
Lawmakers agreed to increase funding for schools that qualify as “pre-eminent” universities by $20 million, which should benefit the University of Florida, Florida State University and the University of South Florida, if USF obtains that status in the coming year.
The budget would increase performance funding for the universities to $265 million in the next academic year, a $20 million increase.
The program that allows universities to recruit “world class” professors and researchers was increased by $20 million, and a program that rewards high-performing medical, law and other professional schools was increased by $10 million.
The state college system would receive $6.75 million as a partial restoration of a $30 million cut in the current year’s budget.