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Editorial: No substitute for state support of schools

 
SCOTT KEELER   |   Times The Florida Capitol in Tallahassee.
SCOTT KEELER | Times The Florida Capitol in Tallahassee.
Published Nov. 16, 2018

This fall voters around the state passed 18 local tax referendums for schools, a reaffirmation that Floridians value public education and are willing to pay for it. But the willingness by voters to invest stands in stark contrast to the miserly Florida Legislature, which placed on the ballot a constitutional amendment that will make it even harder for state lawmakers to raise taxes and virtually ensures state school funding will never significantly increase. This is a cost shift from the state to local communities, and it threatens the mission of providing high-quality, equitable public education throughout Florida.

The referendums that passed this year include countywide sales tax increases, which can be used for capital costs such as roof repairs or air conditioning maintenance. That's where the bulk of the new 10-year, half-cent sales tax in Hillsborough will go. Other counties enacted an additional property tax, which can pay for operational expenses such as teacher pay and the state's new school safety requirements. Pinellas has a half-mill property tax, last renewed in 2016, that enhances arts programs and helps retain teachers.

The local money is an unequivocal boost for districts that are forced to stretch their dollars further every year. The Legislature has been steering more and more money to charter schools, while providing paltry increases in unrestricted per-student funding for traditional public schools, slashing spending on construction and maintenance and imposing more mandates such as school security. And for the last three years, the state has not allowed districts to collect any additional local property tax revenue generated by rising real estate values. At the same time, millions in potential tax dollars that could have gone to pay for public education are being diverted to voucher-like programs that pay for tuition at private schools.

So in Tallahassee, legislators starve public schools of money, steer resources to charters and private schools and then force the takeover of public schools that are under-performing. It's a cynical, intentional dismantling of a statewide, fairly funded public school system under the guise of promoting school choice and accountability. Faced with these conditions, what can local districts do but pass the hat in their own communities?

That's a workable fix in counties such as Hillsborough and Pinellas, with significant tax bases and millions of tourists. The cost can be widely spread, and voters are willing to invest in the future. But small, rural counties lack either the property tax base or the sales tax base for school districts to generate more local money to make much difference for schools. Those counties also tend to be places that consistently vote for Republicans, who in the name of small government and low taxes are responsible for the damaging cuts that have left Florida near the bottom of states in public school spending.

The Legislature should take seriously the constitutional requirement to provide for "a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools" — along with the money to support it. A lawsuit currently before the state Supreme Court claims lawmakers are failing in that duty. In the meantime, lawmakers have handcuffed themselves just in case anyone gets any ideas about doing the right thing. They put Amendment 5 on the ballot, and voters approved requiring any tax increase the Legislature considers to be approved by a two-thirds vote rather than a simple majority.

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For public education, that's a noose around the neck of local districts that already have had to turn to their local constituents to fill funding gaps. Fortunately, voters in dozens of Florida counties have answered the call. But other counties will continue to fall behind, and eventually public education in this state will be a patchwork of the haves and have-nots. The Legislature should not take the tax referendum victories in Hillsborough and elsewhere as validation of its approach to further starve public schools and shift its responsibility to local communities.