South Florida school districts could lose $132 million in state funding for defying Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ban on mask mandates. DeSantis is now backing the proposal, which he initially opposed.
If state lawmakers follow through on a plan to withhold funding from districts that required masks, students will feel the impact. That’s the message from public school officials in South Florida.
Under the proposal pushed by Republican Rep. Randy Fine, the state would withhold $200 million from 12 districts and redistribute the funds to the state’s other districts. The reductionsinclude:
- $32.4 million from Broward County
- $71.8 million from Miami-Dade County
- $28.4 million from Palm Beach County
DeSantis gave the plan his support this week after Fine made clear the funding cuts will be aimed at school administrators who make more than $100,000.
“What they’re doing is they’re withholding salaries of individuals that provide critical services to our students,” Broward County Superintendent Vickie Cartwright told WLRN last week.
“This is going to be a huge impact,” she said. “And unfortunately, who’s going to pay for it? Our students. That’s not right.”
The 12 districts targeted by the plan opted to require students to wear masks during a surge in coronavirus cases, in violation of an order issued by DeSantis. The mask mandate ban was later codified in state law.
“Once the Florida legislature removed any ability for School District's to mandate masks, the District immediately lifted its requirement and shared that information with parents,” reads a written statement from Mike Burke, superintendent of the School District of Palm Beach County. “Representative Fine's proposal to claw back $28 million in funding for the upcoming school year is unfounded, unprecedented, and unjust.”
Democrats have criticized the proposal as a punishment, at a time when districts are already struggling to fill critical staffing shortages from classroom teachers to cafeteria workers to bus drivers.
Jose Dotres, superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, says the plan would jeopardize his district’s ability to address learning loss brought on by the pandemic.
“The potential $71.8 million reduction in funding to Miami-Dade County Public Schools would severely impair this District’s ability to deliver instruction and accelerate learning that was lost over the past two years due to the pandemic,” Dotres said in a statement. “The administrators who would be impacted by this adjustment include those who provide for school safety and security, academic support, exceptional student education, mental health, and other critical functions.”
Fine has emphasized that under the House’s proposed budget, every school district in the state would see an overall funding increase.
“What it does is, it rewards 55 school districts that followed the law, and holds the other 12 school districts accountable,” Fine said. “Those 12 school districts, the most you could say is their budget would not be increasing as much.”
Still, Palm Beach County superintendent Burke says any reduction in funding will impact students.
“With Florida perennially ranked in the bottom decile of education funding per student across the United States, any dollars lost to such a punitive proposal would negatively impact the ability of our schools to meet the needs of our students,” Burke said in a statement.
