State House Dems 'Encouraged' by Corcoran's Pledge to Increase Education Funding

Democratic state representatives say they are onboard with House Speaker Richard Corcoran's pledge to increase Florida's education funding for the 2017-2018 fiscal year.

On Sunday, Corcoran told CBS Miami's Jim DeFede the state could expect to see an increase in education funding. 

State Reps. Larry Lee, Jr., D-Port St. Lucie, and Shevrin Jones, D-West Park, issued a joint statement Monday morning saying they were pleased Corcoran was making the commitment to teachers and the state education system. 

Lee serves as the Democratic ranking member on the House Pre K-12 Appropriations Subcommittee and Jones serves as Democratic Ranking Member on the Education Committee.

“Ensuring every child has access to a quality public education has been neglected for too long when it should always be a top priority of this legislature," they said. "With Florida's public education system still struggling to recover from the devastating $1.3 billion in cuts to their budget signed by Gov. Scott in 2011, it is encouraging that Speaker Corcoran has committed to increasing education spending in next year’s budget. Now that the Speaker has made this commitment, I am hopeful that our committees will move away from looking at ways to cut education funding & instead begin to focus on giving our hardworking teachers a raise & increasing per-pupil funding to actually historic levels that take into account inflation."