Legislature's school budget speaks volumes

You'll hear a lot of rhetoric in coming few days about how the Legislature "didn't raise taxes" this year. But anyone who can decipher the public school budget numbers knows better. Budget detail released Monday evening shows the following:

Property taxes for schools will increase next year by $365-million statewide, an 4.6-percent increase. (Lawmakers increased the tax rate for this tax by 0.189 mills to generate more money; they could have kept the rate the same as last year). To offset the increase, lawmakers fractionally lowered two smaller tax levies by school boards known as discretionary taxes, much of which is for construction. The bottom line is clear: The Legislature will require collection of more property taxes next year to run schools.

Now for the most revealing number of all. For the first time in memory, a greater share of the total K-12 budget comes from local tax dollars, not state dollars. To be precise, it's $9.4-billion in local money, and $9-billion in state money. (This year it's $9.7-billion in state money, $9-billion in local money). It's an historic shift in responsibility for public school operations from state taxes to local taxes. 

   

Comments

[Inconvenient truth]

Very creative of our legislators I'll pretend that I haven't read this, not to spoil their trick! So they can still tell everyone that they didn't raise taxes.

The legislature has raised property taxes by nearly 1 billion dollars in the last two year. Hyprocrites all - including the Governor!

Finally, after its over, the press notices what the Legislature has been doing all along. It is a bit late to fix it unless every Legislator that votes for the bill (and Governor who signs it) is punished at the ballot box, but even that is late to actually help.

[terminator]

gee I wonder how Charlie and Pruitt are going to explain their way out of next year's tax increase on TRIM notices when the promised A1 reduction is offset by the increase to the RLE?

maybe then, voters will realize what a couple of phony hucksters Chuck and Kenny are.

aside from that schools really are local government, so I don't have a problem with making school boards ante up more cash, especially when you have some of the most wasteful like Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Orange and Duval with their legions of useless bureaucrats who perform no useful function pulling down six figure salaries all the while whining about how much money they don't have while underpaying their teachers and support staff.
I believe the fat lady has sung boys. You may not like Jenny Craig but you're going in for a meeting starting on Friday!

terminator,

Last I checked, Marco both voted for and claimed the same "hold schools harmless" baloney as the rest.

As to waste and uselessness, look around your office. Every teacher is paying hundreds of dollars of their hard earned money for you to undercut the very issues that they support in their FEA platform. Maybe you should be fired. Marco could hire you at $10,000 per month to support the passing of one of his ideas (because that would be the first).

Enjoy your summer . . .

[terminator]

10:06
actually I fight very hard for my teacher constituents and enjoy throwing district administrators and rogue principals under the bus.
no one has fought harder for the classroom teachers and school support personnel.
No, I don't go along with the "give us more money" routine without the accountability that should come with it, since I know from firsthand experience over thirty plus years how the money won't reach it's intended destination (teacher raises/health insurance) but will end up in the pockets of greedy school board members, district bureaucrats, slimeball lobbyists and useless unproven education programs.
We're slaying the dragon slowly. This year was a good first dent.
Next year's budget promises to be as bad or worse than this years, so it will force districts to eliminate more of the fat and waste if they hope to keep their head above the waterline.
Once we eliminate the wasteful school district bureaucracy, the money can start flowing to where it should have been going for the past three decades.
It's amazing so many people have been asleep at the wheel all of these years which primarily was perpetrated by the Dems who controlled things until about 94.
If I can exterminate district bureaucracies within the next two years, my mission will be accomplished and it will be a nice cap on my career.

[Omega83]

termie - while your vitriol to school management is understood, many of your classtoom level instructors have bogged the system down for years.

Perhaps the programs "unproven uselessness" were as much the result of underqualified, quota filling, lazy teachers as much as anything else?

Do not deny that many of this scum have perpetuated Florida schools for decades, milking taxpayers for their pensions, getting a cush 3 months off a year, and truly not giving a rat's behind about the performance of students so long as the check clears every month and the union screams for more.

Not hard to do when any bum can get tenure after 2 years.

[Jason Straight]

Wow the public schools are really takin a hit..We dont need dem publik schols no more anyway.D a only jobs lef in dis state is workin at Dennys Walmart and fur Da county tax collector.The Collector pays da bes with big pensions and great benifets.Dont need to know how to spel to work in dese places.The GOP did great work keep it up!Da Dems that want to fund publik Scols are Gay Dumbasses..

Remember this November - and vote accordingly.

Placing more burden on local property tax collections is a step in the right direction.

The local folks who have been passing off the burden on others will now be forced to fight the waste or take it in the wallet like they deserve.

Also, this increased local effort will bring to the forefront the tremendous cost of all the illegal alien English as a 2nd or 3rd language kids. Let Miami-Dade and others pay the real price for that cheap off the books labor!!!

Perhaps the best aspect of this situation is that administrators will look at effeciency models and more honestly evaluate classroom and support staff. Classic self preservation effort. A lot of dead weight will get thrown overboard as there are less and less funding increases available. Eventually there will be fewer bureaucrats and non-core nannies.

I cannot wait for the strong performers in the classroom to face the real world decision of having to rat out the damaged goods amongst them or lose their jobs to them. Management will not do it this time and the union won't do it either. Nope time to be big boys and girls and show you can deal with a real world situation or you will be FLUNCKED OUT!!!

[Omega83]

6:56 where ahve you been? The Legislature has been placing more of the burdens on locals for over a decade now.

The hypocrisy comes into play when they continue to do this - then also criticize how much the locals collect, and restrict how much they can collect.

It's like a little league coach saying that you don't get to play if you don't catch 20 pop-flys - oh, and byt he way, I'm taking away your glove.

The GOP ran on a platform of "the best government is government closesta to the people" - while shifting the burden satisfies that, taking away the resources is hypocritical.

[terminator]

Omega:
I thought you were a little more level headed than that.
What's with the anti-teacher, anti-public education, anti-union rant?
Yes, we do have some bottom feeders in each system, yet I would estimate 90% of all teachers do a very good job given the very challenging circumstances they've been dealt.
Would you actually like to go into an innner city school and try your hand with the gangstas and thugs for a year?
Or maybe one of the nicer suburban schools with "rich brats" whose mommies and daddies think they can do no wrong and just want to fight and argue so junior can be given a pass and receive something they didn't earn?
Add to that, most parents don't care and see schools as surrogate baby sitters, many incompetent and abusive administrators who are ill trained for their positions, school board members completely out of touch with reality, state politicians who could care less and federal idiots like W and his bro Jeb who would rather privitize public schools by attacking them with cr*p like NCLB.
Glad I'm on my way out the door. I've already told my children....don't even think about becoming an educator (lest not in Floriduh).

Wait. I thought the SP Times philosophy was that people WANT to pay more taxes for schools. What in the heck difference does it make WHERE it comes from?

[Omega83]

terminator,

my beef with you on your previous post qwas not meant to be anti-teacher, but rather offer retort to your anti-administrator stance.

It smacks of union shilling and rhetoric to go after administratorrs - is there waste at that level - of course, but there is waste in all levels of public education.

There are also many very hard-working, dedicated administrators - many of whom began in the classroom themselves - who work year round in the hopes of building a better public education system for Florida.

Yes, some lose sight of their classrooms days, however others having "been there" try to help mold and develop better teachers - often to attitudes of apathy, stubborness, and obstinance by the classroom faculty.

Just as I cannot paint all teachers with the same brush, it is absurd to paint all administrators the same.

Terminator,

How much did Broward pay for their education headquarters? What about the Sony building - how much were they asking for that one?

you START by electing a few REPIGLICANS, then a few more...and pretty soon the patholgical LYING and SOCIOPATHY begins to just get out of control!!!!

HAD ENOUGH YET!!!!????!!!!

didja hear the news?

BIG OIL JUST ANNOUNCED MORE RECORD PROFITS!!!!

still NOT ENOUGH????!!!!????

Democrats control the teachers unions and public education in general. Why is it becoming such a miserable failure?

Since BIG OIL is such a leading industry now do we need to involve some of executives from that industry in public education?

Or should we just keep the Culverhouse era attitude that the Buc's once had where being the only game in town was deemed good enough.

It is past time to trade teachers union politics for better education for our children.

[terminator]

Omega:
point well taken but I'd like to think the money's more wisely spent on teachers in the classroom than on pencil pushers doing God knows what downtown.

1:19
Don't know. I'm not part of the district bureaucracy (I'm union).
Whatever it was it was too much.
They do call it the "crystal palace" though!

11:12
while there's plenty enough blame to go around, the R's have been the guys in control since 94 (legislature) and since 98 (Governor).
while there's better accountability Florida remains mired on the bottom in education statistical categories.
the unions fight for the rights of teachers. it's the politicians who make and set policy, so you should blame it on them since they're policies obviously aren't working!

I believe it was $25 million when they had the opportunity to purchase a similar facility for $5!