Legislators on school money hunt
County schools hope for a windfall from special session.
Palm Beach County public school leaders are hoping for a bigger spending boost when state lawmakers reconvene today to work out a new deal to finance Florida’s schools, and early signs suggest that educators might get their wish.
Key House and Senate leaders are proposing more money for public schools than they agreed to provide when they passed a state budget this past month. The new money could come by redirecting dollars from state reserves and money dedicated for projects that Scott has now vetoed, or from adjustments to local property tax rates.
Saying the money for public schools was too low, Gov. Rick Scott this past week vetoed the state’s entire K-12 education budget, which raised average spending per student by 0.3 percent statewide.
In vetoing the budget, Scott called the Legislature back to Tallahassee to consider steering more money toward schools, and economic incentives.
The governor said he hoped for per-student spending to increase by $100. And new proposals filed in the House and Senate this week would do just that. The separate proposals, filed by key lawmakers in each chamber, would raise the average money spent per student to $7,296. That’s $100 higher than this year’s level of $7,196, a 1.3 percent increase.
The figure is well below the 3 percent boost that Scott had originally proposed and that the state’s public schools were hoping for. But education officials say it
would be an improvement from the state budget passed this past month.
“Any more money — that helps, that’s positive,” said Mike Burke, the Palm Beach County School District’s chief financial officer. But he added that “it’s still a pretty low increase. The state revenue grew by 4.6 percent this year.”
While the proposals would raise K-12 spending by about 1.3 percent statewide, Palm Beach County would see a bigger hike, roughly 2.3 percent, Burke said. The main reasons are the county’s high property values and high cost of living, which the state factors into its school-funding formula.
The House and Senate would have to agree on the proposed spending hike. Each chamber is scheduled to take up the matter in committee meetings today.
While the House and Senate proposals call for the same increase in education spending, they come up with the money in different ways. The House plan, filed by Rep. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, would raise it from state reserves and money earmarked for now-vetoed projects.
That plan was criticized by Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, who said in a memo Tuesday that using non-recurring sources of money “negatively impacts our budget, and potentially our bond rating, in future years.”
The Senate version, filed by Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, takes a different tack: paying for the increased spending on public schools by reducing a planned decrease in local property tax rates. The property tax rates paid across the state to finance public schools will still drop to offset a statewide rise in property values, but it would be a smaller drop under the Senate plan.
House Speaker Richard Corcoran criticized that strategy as a “massive property tax increase.”
“Needless to say, the House is not raising taxes,” Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes, wrote on Twitter.
As the session convenes, still unresolved is the fate of House Bill 7069, a sweeping education bill passed this past month by state lawmakers. The bill is not part of the session’s official agenda. Some school district leaders have called on Scott to veto the bill.
School district leaders complain that the bill would force them to share construction money raised through local property taxes with charter schools. If Scott declines to veto the bill, the school district next year would have to share an estimated $10 million of the roughly $275 million that it raises through a special property tax dedicated to building and maintaining facilities and equipment, Burke said.
In dollars and cents, the K-12 spending debate promises to be the biggest task facing legislators this week. The state’s entire K-12 budget totals roughly $20 billion.
But Scott’s call for a special session also called for legislators to consider more money and accountability measures for Visit Florida, Enterprise Florida and other economic programs.
Supporters of medical marijuana also are pushing for legislators to use the session to set up guidelines for use of medical marijuana, which voters legalized via a state constitutional amendment this past year.
Scott’s call for a special session did not make mention of medical marijuana, but Negron told senators Tuesday that he was open to taking on other subjects.
Legislation outside of the call requires a two-thirds vote of the membership for introduction.
“I have made no agreement that would dictate an outcome for this special session,” Negron wrote. “Nor have I made any agreement to limit the subject matter to the issues listed in the Governor’s proclamation. As always, any senator may file legislation within, or outside of, the current proclamation for consideration by the Senate.”
The governor “does not support anything outside the call” for the special session, a spokesperson for his office said Monday, according to the Associated Press. He supports the bills filed by the House for the special session, as opposed to those filed by the Senate.