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Updates by Bob Cerra, NEFEC Legislative Consultant, Cerra Consulting Group

March 27, 2025

Florida Senate and House Release Budget Chairs’ Recommendations: Tough Fiscal Year Ahead

House Budget – 3/25/25

In the House, Chair Persons-Mulicka, who heads the PreK-12 Appropriations Committee, released her budget recommendations on Tuesday. It included a budget conforming bill with several important features. We will outline the important budget and conforming bill issues below. In addition, the Speaker of the House announced yesterday that he wants to reduce the sales tax rate from 6% to 5.25% in the budget that is released on Friday. It is unclear if that reduction is already reflected in the Chair’s Education budget, but even if it is included, it would make negotiations to increase the budget in conference later in the process even more complicated.

Appropriations

Total UFTE would increase statewide by 1.91% including all funded students (public, charter, voucher, funded home school).
Total WFTE would DECREASE by 0.33% largely due to the reduction of add-on weights for acceleration and CAPE found in the conforming bill.
The BSA would increase by $50.51 but this is slightly artificial because of the artificial workload decrease noted in the bullet above.
The Teacher Salary Increase Allocation which has been embedded within the BSA for the past several years is increased by $102 million or 8.14% which takes the vast majority of the increase to base funding statewide (inflexible).
No increases for Safe Schools Allocation or Student Mental Health Allocation.
The total funds per UFTE (including vouchers) would be $9,049.88 which is an increase of $62.21 or 0.69%.
Link to House Budget Spreadsheet

Conforming

Requires a unique number for each funded student including all voucher students and DOE must create and maintain these themselves without relying upon any outside agency to provide numbers (no SFO substitute for DOE responsibility).
Reduces the add-on weights by half across the board (AP, IB, AICE, CAPE – both weights for credits and enhanced diploma programs).
Moves survey dates for school districts about two weeks earlier in both Fall and Spring surveys.
Deletes the Student Stabilization Fund for traditional public schools and charter schools that has assisted in avoiding mid-year prorations to the formula but specifies that voucher students are not subject to the potential of proration that public school students (traditional and charters) would risk.
Link to House Budget Conforming Bill
Link to House Budget Conforming Bill Analysis

Senate Budget

On March 26, Chair Burgess of the Senate Committee on PreK-12 Appropriations released his recommendations for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. While slightly better than the House on most issues, this budget is still much more austere than was expected. It is far below the Governor’s Recommendations for most topics. The conforming bill also generally represents better positions for district budgets.

Appropriations

Total UFTE would increase statewide by 1.91% including all funded students (public, charter, voucher, funded home school), which agrees with the House total workload position.
Total UFTE for districts (traditional and charter students) would decrease by 0.99%.
Total WFTE (all funded students including vouchers) would increase by 0.06%.
Total WFTE for districts (traditional and charters) would DECREASE by 3.00%.
The BSA would increase by $66.71 or 1.25%.
The Teacher Salary Increase Allocation which has been embedded within the BSA for the past several years is increased by $ 248,581,829 million or 19.81% which takes the vast majority of the increase to base funding statewide (inflexible).
No increases for Safe Schools Allocation or Student Mental Health Allocation.
The total funds per UFTE (including vouchers) would be $9,122.93 which is an increase of $135.26 or 1.35%.
Link to Senate Budget Spreadsheet

Conforming

Establishes an operating categorical fund for the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, setting guidelines for fund disbursement based on the "full-time equivalent student" and specific payment release criteria. In other words, the Senate would move vouchers “below the line” and show the public their true positions on funding for school districts. This exposes declining enrollment and other serious budget policies of the Legislature that were predictable to the public’s eye.
Creates the educational enrollment stabilization program to provide supplemental state funds responding to changes in student enrollment, establishing guidelines for school district stabilization and additional payments. The fund would guarantee both vouchers and public schools against mid-year prorations in most cases, and would provide for either 10% for districts in declining enrollment (most districts) or 25% for rural districts that are defined as economically challenged for students that decline after the 2nd calculation.
Amends the administrative and accountability requirements for nonprofit scholarship-funding organizations, including application processing, scholarship disbursement, and oversight provisions.
Establishes new requirements for private schools participating in scholarship programs, including detailed criteria for financial accountability and student assessment.
Clarifies the procedures for enrolling students, applying for scholarships, and the responsibilities of scholarship-funding organizations, including maintaining student accounts and ensuring funds are used appropriately.
Stipulates regular reporting and audit requirements to maintain transparency and accountability within scholarship programs.
Link to Senate Budget Confirming Bill
Link to Senate Budget Conforming Bill Analysis

Bottom Line

Both budgets are below what was requested by the Governor. Both budgets are closer to the State Board of Education’s LBRs, which were woeful. Both budgets tie up virtually 100% of any otherwise flexible funding increases per student, and because of declining enrollments in most districts, none of your funding is truly an increase to your base budget. The Senate’s methodology of funding vouchers below the line will expose this truth to the public while the House wants to continue to make it difficult for anyone but a Superintendent or Finance Officer to understand how dire the situation is in most districts. The impact of the Speaker’s goal of lowering sales tax, which was just announced yesterday for the first time, is unknown as we do not know if the Chair’s budget in the House already reflected the loss of that state revenue.

February 21, 2025

Senate President Releases Rural Renaissance Initiative: Several Major Education Initiatives Included

On February 19th, Senator Corey Simon filed Senate Bill 110 – Rural Renaissance. Several major education initiatives were included in the bill including: a new $25 million grant program to be administered through the three consortia to their members; a tripling of the regional educational consortia member district allotment from $50,000 per district to $150,000 per district; and, a removal of the requirement for districts receiving Special Facilities funding to pay the state any of their local property taxes back to the state as part of that program. The grant program includes an expansive list of services that districts, and the consortia’s governing boards may consider implementing to provide more efficient and/or effective services for students. These include student transportation; district finance personnel services; property insurance; cybersecurity support; school safety; college, career, and workforce development; academic support; and behavior support within exceptional student education services.

As you know, leadership and lobbying teams from each of the three consortia have been involved in supporting the development of this initiative at the request of the Senate President. We are very excited about the items that President Albritton has determined to include in his initiative, and we are confident that if implemented fully, these will make a measurable difference for the students that you serve.

While there is still much work to be done to get this package passed through the Legislature and funded in the final budget, the release of the bill heralds a huge opportunity for our districts and the three consortia to impact services for the students in our districts. We are extremely excited to engage in that work to get the policy and budget set so that our districts and consortia can deliver upon that opportunity.

Linked below are several documents that can further inform you about the initiative:

There are many other changes included in the bill that relate to local economic development, improvement in the availability and quality of medical services in rural counties. These improvements, if adopted, could also assist in improving overall student educational outcomes, but for the purposes of this report, we will focus only upon the major educational changes made in the bill.

TThe bill has only two committees of reference in the Senate: Community Affairs and Fiscal Policy.

We anticipate that the first committee will hear this during the first week of Session. A staff analysis will be published at that time, and NEFEC will share that will you at that time.

There is currently no House companion bill, but since this is a priority of the Senate President, it is highly likely that the items in the bill will be addressed by the House in some fashion during the Session.

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About / Contact

NEFEC Legislative Network Services is a cooperative legislative and educational program whereby the 15 member districts of the Consortium are able to influence the legislative process more effectively than on an individual district basis. Through this program the Consortium serves as a liaison with the State Department of Education, the districts, and the Florida Legislature.

Benefits include:

Forming linkages with state and local agencies, entities, and organizations which impact education related policies, programs and practices in Florida
Attending and monitoring all meetings of the State Board of Education, Cabinet, Legislature, and various commissions concerned with education
Keeping member districts informed on actions taken by these entities
Coordinating the development of the Consortium's annual legislative program/priorities
Providing quick response to legislators on questions/concerns about proposed legislation and any other relative educational issue
Providing assistance in interpreting new or amended legislation

Please contact us here:

Bob Cerra
Cerra Consulting Group, Inc.

850-212-6233 (cell)
850-222-4428 (office)

bobcerra at comcast dot net

John Cerra
Cerra Consulting Group, Inc.

786-525-6233 (cell)
850-222-4428 (office)

cerraj at comcast dot net