By Melissa Byrd

With the legislative session finally coming to a close, the most important work of the Legislature was completed: the budget. School districts across the state were holding their breath, waiting for the final budget that came very late due to disagreements between the House and Senate. 

As expected, the budget remains dismal for public education in this state, though there was one big win. All funding for advanced study programs like AP, IB, AICE, and career and technical studies was preserved—none was reduced. 

During the session, the Florida House proposed cutting advanced studies programs in half, but the outcry from the public convinced lawmakers to reverse course. 

But the real story is the repeated and deep underfunding of our state’s public schools yet again. 

Public school funding is a complicated formula, but it all boils down to buckets of money. The Legislature gives school districts a Base Student Allocation (BSA) that can be used for any operating budget needs of the schools, including raises for staff. Then there are additional buckets, or allocations, that have prescribed uses like school safety, mental health, transportation, etc.  

All of these buckets combine with the Base Student Allocations to create the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) per student funding. 

The Base Student Allocation will increase by $41.62 per student, or .78%, and the total funding per student will increase by $139.27 per student, or 1.57%.  

For reference, the Consumer Price Index, which tracks inflation, is currently at 3%. So this increase is about half of the current rate of inflation. 

As I have said before, the specific buckets of money that the state prescribes for us for specific needs like transportation and school safety are grossly inadequate to cover current costs. The transportation funding only covers about 40% of our annual costs to transport our students to school. The rest of that money gets pulled from the BSA. 

You might recall that last year we struggled to get contracts signed with our local police departments because they wanted us to increase the amount of money we pay for each school resource officer. The reason we could not do that easily is because we were already overspending our state Safe Schools allocation by $16 million. 

My point is that the operating costs for school districts are already stretched so thin that a budget that doesn’t even keep up with inflation is difficult to swallow. It is essentially a decrease in funding and will make the deficit that we are running our district on even deeper. 

If you are concerned about public education funding, make sure our elected officials know. I work closely with them, and they truly care about our children, but they need to hear from you for any change to happen.