Lawmakers will have to correct Gov. Charlie Crist's fuzzy math if they have any hope of balancing the budget based on his K-12 spending plan.
Boosting the public schools' outlays to $22.7 billion, Crist keeps education as the single biggest item in the state budget. But, while touting a $175 increase in per-pupil spending, the governor has no firm plan to pay for it.
"His budget is killing me,'' said Sen. Stephen Wise, R-Jacksonville, chairman of the Senate Education Appropriations Committee. "Where is he getting his money?''
Crist is betting heavily that his gambling deal with the Seminole Tribe will pump up school revenues. Yet, that controversial compact is not assured of passage from casino-shy lawmakers. Even if it is approved, it's expected to net barely $400 million. That's chump change in a K-12 system, which spends that much in less than a week.
Still, the governor's budget receives positive reviews from one sector: local school districts.
Crist's budget director, Jerry McDaniel, said the state, for the first time in eight years, would not pass more of the funding load on to districts. Indeed, Tallahassee picks up about $650 million that districts will lose because of falling property values, McDaniel said.
If lawmakers and the governor agree on one thing, it's the need to rein in the class-size reduction amendment, which has consumed $16 billion of K-12 spending since it was passed by Florida voters in 2002.
If the final phase goes into effect next year, schools will take another $350 million hit in tightening class-size mandates.
To avert that possibility, Senate Joint Resolution 2 would retain class sizes based on campus-wide averages and delay stricter class-by-class averages.
Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said the measure heads off the additional mandate and gives local educators more discretion in assigning students. To become law, lawmakers must approve SJR 2 for the November ballot, and at least 60 percent of voters must ratify it.
The monetary stakes are particularly high as the Department of Education is projecting a 19,000 increase in students this year. Last year, some 10,000 students exited public schools.
But, SJR 2 is no sure thing, since Democrats may be able to muster enough votes to block the super-majority needed for legislative approval.
Mark Pudlow, communications director for the Florida Education Association, which bankrolls many Democrats' campaigns, said the teachers' organization will oppose any attempt to alter the class-size law.
"Thirty-three percent of classrooms are overcrowded now. If changes are needed, there are statutory ways to do that," Pudlow said.
At the same time, the FEA is opposing SB 6, an education reform measure that would, among other things, require more testing and tighten academic standards.
"Republican leaders are talking out of both sides of their mouths," Pudlow says. "They're proposing more unfunded mandates on local districts while testing companies reap a bonanza."
The Florida Chamber of Commerce, however, fully supports the measure authored by Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine. The chamber says that increasing efficiency and accountability in the K-12 system is crucial improving academic performance and producing a skilled workforce for a knowledge-based economy.
In the battle over funding, Pudlow says the FEA supports the Indian gambling initiative, as well as a tax on Internet sales and a shutting down sales-tax exemptions.
GOP leaders are taking an entirely different fiscal tack than Crist or the FEA.
Gaetz, for example, is sponsoring SB 2580, which would allow districts to combine their purchasing power by negotiating for better prices and better terms for group health insurance.
The former superintendent of Okaloosa County schools noted that insurance costs among the state's 67 districts vary widely by as much as 50 percent.
"When you have districts spending $1.4 billion each year for health insurance, there are potentially sizable savings with larger, regional pools -- with no jobs or services lost," the Niceville Republican said.
To economize through competition, Florida TaxWatch wants the Legislature to require school districts to bid out services for non-instructional expenses, such as transportation, facility maintenance, food service, back office technology, data warehousing, human resources, payroll and insurance.
"This would determine the most cost-effective means for providing these services, and simultaneously require the districts to achieve an overall reduction in the cost of these services in the first year to meet the national average (which equates to a savings of $300 million), with further reduction targets set for years two and three," TaxWatch stated.
A bill by Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, would expand the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program for the state's poorest and lowest-performing students.
By lifting the cap on corporate contributions, HB 1009, would raise the current maximum scholarship from $3,950 to four-fifths of the base spending formula for public school students.
"That fourth-fifths translates to about half the total money spent per-student in public schools and means the scholarships would still cost taxpayers less," says Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up For Students, a nonprofit that helps administer the Tax Credit Scholarships.
Tuthill estimates that a scholarship increase would boost participation in the 8-year-old program. Currently, 22,722 low-income students use the scholarships at 1,020 private schools.
HB 1009's companion, SB 2126, passed the Committee on Finance and Tax Wednesday on a 4-1 vote.
The Foundation for Florida's Future, a school-reform organization headed by former Gov. Jeb Bush, believes that budget proposals which equate more dollars with better education miss the mark.
"It's not how much you spend, it's how you spend it. Putting more money into a system that's not working will not make a difference," said one FFF staffer, noting that several states and the District of Columbia spend far more per pupil than Florida but achieve far inferior scholastic results.
In addition to supporting SB 6 and SB 4, which seeks to raise high-school graduation standards, FFF advocates more online learning programs, such as the Florida Virtual School, as a way to broaden and deepen K-12 curriculum while containing costs.
Citing a survey of 20 virtual schools in 14 states, University of Florida associate professor Catherine Cavanaugh found that the average yearly cost of online learning per full-time pupil was about $4,300 vs. a national average cost per pupil of more than $9,100 for a traditional public school.
HIGHER EDUCATION
A rare alliance of educators and the business community is pushing a plan to substantially boost post-secondary spending.
But, it's far from clear that this collaborative clout will be enough to convince lawmakers to invest more in Florida's colleges and universities.
The "New Florida Initiative" would increase state spending on higher education by $1.75 billion over five years -- a sharp reversal from the $600 million that's been cut from the post-secondary budget since 2007.
The plan includes increasing by 2015 the number of bachelor's degrees by 25,000 and the number of faculty by 2,500. Funds would be focused on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and the additional faculty are expected to bring $500 million annually in research money.
The state Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Council of 100 back the plan.
"Unfortunately, Florida today is not leading the race," the Council of 100 wrote in "Closing the Talent Gap," "in providing its workers with the professional skills and education they need to compete and succeed in the economy of this new century."
Crist supports the venture with a $100 million down payment in his higher-ed budget, which allocates $3.6 billion for the state's university system. Senate budget writers quickly whittled that total down to $3.4 billion.
The Florida College System (which encompasses community colleges) is in line for $2 billion -- a $67 million increase -- under the Crist plan.
But, Republican legislative leaders question Crist's ability to justify any increase. Though the governor noted an uptick in revenues, those funds -- and more -- will be soaked up by the rising cost of big entitlement programs, such as Medicaid.
As such, lawmakers are maneuvering to further scale back the Bright Futures Scholarship program, whose tuition subsidies are chewing up an ever-enlarging share of the post-secondary pie.
Some students are skeptical about the collegiate funding models that lean heavily on old-school bricks and mortar.
"Higher education needs to increase efficiencies and eliminate the massive bureaucracy that exists today. One of the ways to do so would be to provide more and more online learning and finding unique ways to build competition between schools for funds," says Jacob Engels, chairman of the Florida Teenage Republicans and a dual-enrollment student at Valencia Community College in Orlando.
The Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida believes that greater collaboration with private schools can deliver more bang for the buck for the state.
Leveraging Florida Resident Access Grants for in-state students, ICUF schools annually award 26 percent of the state's baccalaureate degrees and 31 percent of total degrees with just 1.3 percent of Florida's higher-ed funding, says ICUF president Ed Moore.
"Nearly 47 percent of ICUF bachelor degrees are awarded in the critical fields of education, health care, engineering, computer science and biology/biomedical," the organization states.
Moore suggests that any increase in the modest $2,500 FRAG grant will increase those numbers at a fraction of the cost the state would otherwise incur for educating students in the heavily subsidized public system.
ICUF's 28 member institutions, ranging from the University of Miami to Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, contribute more than $15 billion to Florida's economy each year.
