As the Miami-Dade County school board approved a tentative budget for the new fiscal year, the district's chief financial officer called it a "historically difficult budget" to put together, given the extension of this year's state legislative session.
"This wasn't just, you know, a slap together budget over the last few months when... the legislature finally closed session," Steiger said at Wednesday's meeting with the school board, the first public meeting for the budget. "This was an entire process that was all year long where we've been meeting with constituents, we've been meeting with pretty much every stakeholder we have."
The delayed release of federal funds that support programs for English language learning, science and technology innovation, teacher training and migrant education also shaped discussion.
" This was a very, very difficult timeline that they had to work through," said Superintendent Jose Dotres. "And it's amazing the way that we've been able to put this together."
Steiger added that despite the challenges, "the resources we have are aligned with [the district's] values" and the outlined budget reflects "the importance of the classroom" and "protection of our taxpayers."
As it stands now, the budget is at over $7 billion dollars, approximately $100 million dollars less than last year largely due to the expiration of federal stimulus funds.
Hours before the meeting began, education advocates from Power U Center for Social Change, a community activism organization, rallied outside the school board building in the name of protecting public education and opposing charter school expansion. As school choice's popularity has grown in Florida and parents opt to enroll students in charters and private schools, some funds get diverted from public school classrooms.
" We understand that a lot of this is pushed by policy makers in Tallahassee who do have a different vision for what education should look like and who it should serve," Jose Dominguez from Power U said when addressing the board. He named some demands the organization presented to plead the school board to maintain the interest of public education in the center of their work and policy making.
"...We share the sentiment about the financial challenges that we face. Full stop," said board member Steve Gallon III in response to more than a dozen public speakers from Power U raising concern about private education. "We recognize that we are facing days of reckoning, but we're very proud of the work of the superintendent, the work of the staff as [has] been directed by this board, the leadership of our chair and every board member to get us to this particular point."
The final vote on the budget will take place on Sept. 10.
