Who are the six Republican Florida lawmakers who voted against the bill allowing teachers to be armed?

Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami

 

Perhaps the bill that drew the most local and national headlines during Florida’s legislative session was Senate Bill 7030, which allows classroom teachers to be armed on campus. The bill was a follow-up to last year’s law passed in the wake of the shooting in Parkland, which first created the “Guardian program” to allow school staff to be armed but excluded teachers who “exclusively perform classroom duties" from being eligible.

 

This year’s bill, which is expected to be signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in the coming days, undid that exception. Anyone volunteering to participate in the program must undergo screening and training by law enforcement.

 

The bill was largely passed along party lines. However, a handful of Republicans broke ranks to also vote against the bill along with the Democrats.

In the House, five GOP state representatives voted “no:" Reps. Mike Beltran of Lithia, Vance Aloupis of Miami, Chip LaMarca of Fort Lauderdale, Mike Caruso of Delray Beach and David Smith of Winter Springs.

 

All five are freshmen, meaning they were just elected to the Legislature last year. Several said they had not coordinated their vote, but instead had decided on their own they would not support the bill.

 

Beltran said his vote was the result of several months’ worth of research as well as “overwhelming opposition” from his constituents.

 

“I feel that firearms in our schools belong in the hands of trained law enforcement professionals. I am prepared to allocate the resources necessary to protect each school,” he wrote in a statement. “Community sentiment strongly aligned with my own analysis and so the answer was clear.”

 

Similarly, Aloupis said his vote was influenced by his community’s reaction to the idea.

 

“School safety isn’t a partisan issue,” he said. “There’s much good that the bill will do, especially in the area of data sharing. However, many parents and other stakeholders in my community urged me to vote ‘no’ for reasons specific to the Guardian program — and it’s my responsibility to make sure that those voices are heard in Tallahassee.”

 

In addition to the contentious piece involving teachers carrying guns, the bill also adds a slew of other school safety measures, such as more specific guidelines for how schools should offer mental health services to students as well as creates a standardized, statewide “threat assessment” tool for schools to keep records of students they feel may pose a “behavioral threat” to themselves or others.

 

LaMarca said the fact that his district is in Broward County played a role.

 

“Having heard from hundreds of families, parents, students, school district members, law enforcement officers, as well as members of the (Marjory Stoneman Douglas) Public Safety Commission ... I voted NO,” he wrote. “My geographic location and personal relationships with many of the families and elected officials made this a very personal issue for me.”

 

In the Senate, Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, said during a committee meeting in mid-April that she would not be supporting the bill in an emotional speech, so her “no” vote was expected.

 

When it comes to putting more guns in schools, "there’s more things that can go wrong than can go right in that situation,” she said at the time. “I really hope that I’m wrong. I hope we’re all wrong and it will be a lot more good that comes from this than bad, but I firmly believe our kids’ lives should be protected by more than just hope.”

 

To see how other state senators voted on the bill, click here.

 

To view the votes in the state House, click here.

Florida Legislature finishes K-12 education budget with $248 increase per student

Miami Herald file photo

 

TALLAHASSEE — Florida lawmakers said they were finished negotiating the preK-12 education portion of the budget during a Sunday evening meeting, closing out one of the largest and typically one of the most contentious areas of the state’s massive funding plan. If the session is to finish on time, the entire state budget must be finished by the end of the day Tuesday.

 

Highlights of the preK-12 education budget include a $248 per-student increase in state funding that’s distributed based on enrollment, also called the “FEFP.” However, it’s important to note that lawmakers have also boosted the number of programs that are funded through the per-student pot, so comparing that to last year’s $101 per-pupil increase is not completely representative.

 

The best measure, perhaps, is the portion of that increase dedicated to flexible district spending, in a category called the “base student allocation.” This year, lawmakers have agreed to a $75 per-student boost to that portion.

 

Last year’s increase to the base student allocation was only 47 cents, which sparked outrage among districts and superintendents demanded that the Legislature reconvene to redo their education funding after the session had ended.

 

This year’s amount elicited a much warmer response from school leaders.

 

Pinellas County schools superintendent Mike Grego, who was a vocal critic of last year’s budget, praised the agreement, saying he was “very much more excited about the budget this year than last.”

 

“It’s obviously moving in the right direction,” said Grego, vice president of the state superintendents association.

 

He said this increase to the base student allocation could help the district cover retirement costs, electric bills and health insurance benefits — all of which are rising. At $75 per student, Pinellas schools would get about $7.3 million, Grego said.

 

Other than the base student allocation, there are other important categories within the per-student funding that are dedicated to certain expenses, such as school safety and mental health services offered in schools by counselors and school psychologists. The breakdown of those categories was not yet released as of early Monday evening.

 

Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho noted that this $75 boost represents the highest increase in the flexible district spending, which he called the “clearest indicator” of state education funding, since the 2015-2016 budget.

 

“We certainly should celebrate a $75 increase to the BSA,” he said. “We could very well see ourselves in a position where … in this next year, we would not have to make reductions to balance the budget as was the case in the last four years.”

 

Pasco County superintendent Kurt Browning, president-elect of the state superintendents association, got word of the base-student allocation amount while traveling abroad. He was among the superintendents who most loudly criticized the Legislature's 47-cent increase a year ago.

“The additional $75 in BSA is welcomed,” Browning said via text message, noting he had not seen all the other details in the budget. “Grateful, but hoping for more for teacher raises.”

 

Hillsborough County School Board chairwoman Tamara Shamburger said she viewed the budget as more of a mixed message.

 

“We’re grateful and we’re happy that the legislators have heard us,” she said, but noted the higher funding level does little to boost Florida’s national standing when it comes to per-student funding. “We certainly will encourage everyone next year to do a little bit better."

Florida House passes bill to require school districts to share referendum money with charter schools

Herald file photo

 

TALLAHASSEE — When voters choose to hike their local property taxes to help schools in their county, that money would need to be shared between districts and charter schools under a bill passed by the Florida House.

 

The bill is sponsored by Republican Rep. Bryan Avila of Hialeah. The late-night debate largely became a South Florida fight as Democrat and Republican representatives from Miami-Dade duked it out on the floor of the House over an ongoing fight happening in Miami that may now have statewide implications.

 

As the legislative session races to the finish line, the House has been in overtime, and this bill was passed just before midnight Thursday night.

 

In the 2018 midterm elections, Miami-Dade voters approved a raise in their property taxes for teacher salary raises and school safety measures required in the law passed after the Parkland shooting last year. However, district officials have said they would not be sharing the salary portion — the majority of the funds — with charter schools.

 

“Whether you’re a charter school teacher or a traditional public school teacher, you’re doing the same thing,” Avila, himself a former charter school teacher, said. “We put in blood, sweat and tears, we care for our kids. So when a school district says, ‘We’re going to have a levy but these public (charter) school teachers need to be excluded?’ I think that’s not only wrong, I think it’s immoral.”

 

Charter schools are publicly funded schools operated by private entities, and are defined as public schools under Florida law.

 

Avila said Miami-Dade’s ballot language proposing the increased property tax was “as vague as possible," and he accused the district of intentionally being unclear on whether charter schools would get a cut of the funds until after the referendum passed.

 

Democratic Rep. Dotie Joseph, also of Miami, said this bill is “smoke and mirrors” simply because Republicans didn’t like how districts are using their discretionary spending when they raise local money to go above inadequate state funds.

 

“We try to play like the voters don’t know what they’re doing. They know absolutely what they’re doing,” she said. “What happened here was simple: Tallahassee failed us so we took matters into our own hands at the local level.”

 

The presidents of both the statewide teachers’ union and the Miami-Dade teachers’ union held a news conference earlier this week at the Florida Capitol where they protested this bill and said lawmakers were usurping the will of the voters.

 

“Some of our educators already started to receive some of this (referendum) funding with the negotiations we finished in January, so now if you’re putting this in place, you’re creating a big dilemma for us,” said Karla Hernandez-Mats, the United Teachers of Dade union president. “We had over 71 percent of the community said yes ... when they voted, they knew they were voting for our public schools.”

 

Beyond the fight in Miami, Avila also pointed out an ongoing lawsuit in Palm Beach County over this exact issue, which he said proves the point that greater “clarity” is needed in the law to settle that districts must share their funds.

 

Around 20 school districts in the state have reaped the benefits of voter-approved increases to local property taxes, including Pinellas.

Pinellas most recently passed its special property tax in 2016, with 76 percent of the vote. It generates about $40 million a year, of which 80 percent goes toward teacher salaries.

 

As in Miami, the revenue already has been figured into the latest teacher contract, with $4,188 in referendum dollars going into each Pinellas teacher’s salary.

In addition to the piece about school funding, House Bill 7123, the House’s tax package, also would significantly reduce the state’s commercial lease tax and set dates for this year’s sales-tax-free shopping days for back-to-school season and hurricane preparedness.

 

There is currently no similar language related to referendum money in the Florida Senate, though that is fairly typical for this point in the process when dealing with tax bills. It’s unclear so far whether the Senate will take up a similar idea.

School districts, charters, sheriffs. Who decides if teachers can be armed?

PARKLAND, FL - FEBRUARY 25: People visit Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 25, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

 

The Florida Senate didn’t have a formal vote on the bill that would allow classroom teachers to be armed on Wednesday, but they did adopt a major amendment that could settle one of the biggest lingering questions of the debate: who gets to decide if teachers in a school can be armed?

 

Under current law, passed last year as part of the fallout from the shooting in Parkland that left 17 students and staff dead, both a school district and their county’s sheriff must agree to offer the “Guardian program” before teachers can carry guns on campus. The sheriff’s office is then charged with offering teachers and other personnel with the proper training and psychological screening. Some districts have opted to hire security staff whose only role is to be armed protection.

 

But under Wednesday’s amendment to the bill, sheriff’s offices would be required to offer that training if school districts requests it, though that sheriff may contract with another sheriff to provide it instead. Additionally, if a district decides not to participate in the program but a charter school disagrees, they can ask their county’s sheriff to offer the training to their staff anyway.

 

“There have been discussions with the House to try to get these bills lined up," said Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton. “It’s a genuine issue regarding who is making the decisions and who is calling the shots and we didn’t want to have one school speaking for the whole district.”

 

But there’s an additional curveball: if a charter school wishes to arm their staff and the sheriff refuses, they can also ask a sheriff outside their county to provide the training instead.

 

“If the (Broward County) school board does not want it, and they’ve been adamant about that, so if a charter school decides they do want it it’s going to be a problem,” Sen. Perry Thurston, D-Lauderhill, said.

 

The new version of the bill clarifies that the district and charter schools have a joint responsibility to ensure all charter schools have armed security, which is required by law on every campus.

 

The question was the subject of a lawsuit in Palm Beach County, where an administrative law judge ruled that the school board there must assign school security to charter schools. Charter schools are public schools that are operated by private entities.

 

Final votes on the school safety bills, Senate Bill 7030 and House Bill 7093, are expected in both chambers in the coming days.

School referendum funding bill heads to Florida House floor with some changes

[Miami Herald file photo]

 

The Florida House bill that would require school districts that have had successful voter referendums to share their additional funding with charter schools passed its final committee in the House on Tuesday, with a few significant changes. Its next stop is the House floor.

 

Under this bill, House Bill 7123, districts whose voters approved a higher property tax rate for school funding would need to share that money with charter schools starting in the next budget year. Charter schools are paid for with public money and run by private entities.

 

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Bryan Avila, R-Hialeah, added an amendment on Tuesday in the House Appropriations committee which would require charter schools that receive a slice of these funds to use them for the intended purpose of the referendums. In Miami-Dade for example, voters supported a measure in November to raise their property taxes with the express purpose of funding teacher salaries and increased school security.

 

The amendment also removed the financial penalty for school districts should they fail to properly share the funds with districts.

“Some of the members had ... concerns about enacting or implementing penalties,” Avila said. “This is a package that obviously still has a long way to go in terms of the negotiations with the Senate, so it’s still a work in progress.”

 

In the bill’s first committee, House Ways and Means, Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani from Orlando proposed an amendment that would have had a similar effect. At the time, her change was voted down but Avila pledged to take it under further consideration, which he said contributed to Tuesday’s amendment.

 

This bill would affect Pinellas, Miami-Dade, Broward and about a dozen other districts whose voters have approved property tax increases in the past. The Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando school districts have won voter approval for local sales tax increases, which would not be affected by this change.

 

The bill’s origins likely rest with an ongoing dispute in Miami over their approved property tax hike, as district officials have said they would not share the majority of the referendum money — the portion for teacher salaries — with charters. Although Avila has often pointed to his home county of Miami-Dade as a chief example of this problem, he’s emphasized the need for “clarity” statewide on this issue, especially to deal with ongoing lawsuits.

 

But some of the Democrats in Tuesday’s committee said they weren’t buying it, and were frustrated that Miami-Dade’s squabble could now have statewide implications.

Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, pointed to Palm Beach County, where voters approved a property tax hike after the school board stated that the money would not be shared with charter schools. That decision is now the subject of a lawsuit.

 

“We’re coming in and usurping will of the voters ... but they approved it overwhelmingly on that condition," he said. "How can we be doing this?”

Although the piece related to school referendum funding has seen the most contention, it’s part of a larger tax package, which would also significantly reduce the state’s commercial lease tax and set dates for this year’s sales-tax-free shopping days for back-to-school season and hurricane preparedness.

 

In past years, it’s been typical for the House to propose their tax package first, which the Senate can incorporate into their version. It’s unclear whether the Senate will accept the piece related to charter school funding.

Ron DeSantis seeks free speech resolution allowing controversial speakers at Florida universities

Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at Dodd Hall on Florida State University's campus on April 15, 2019. He said Florida's colleges and universities should adopt a specific free speech policy that allows for more "intellectual diversity." Emily L. Mahoney |Times/Herald

 

Gov. Ron DeSantis said all of Florida’s colleges and universities should adopt a resolution similar to the “Chicago statement,” a statement on campus free speech that declares that all viewpoints should be allowed to be discussed on college campuses, even if they are ones students may “loathe” or find “deeply offensive.”

 

“We are here today to affirm our commitment to ensuring that all Florida’s public universities and colleges and protect student speech and the open exchange of ideas on our campuses,” DeSantis said during a Monday news conference at Florida State University, flanked by the university’s president, John Thrasher, Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran and Marshall Criser, chancellor of the state’s university system.

 

Scores of colleges and universities across the country have already adopted a version of this resolution, including Eckerd College, a liberal arts school in St. Petersburg. According to the governor’s office, all the state’s other colleges and universities are plan to adopt the Chicago statement.

 

Notably, DeSantis addressed the topic of controversial speakers — an issue with which Florida is deeply familiar, after white nationalist Richard Spencer spoke at the University of Florida in October 2017 and had to cut his speech short after students in the audience drowned him out with chants like “Black Lives Matter.”

 

“At an academic institution where you have a speaker expressing ideas, there’s no room for a heckler’s veto where you simply shout down or scream down a speaker so that they cannot articulate views,” DeSantis said, later adding that in Spencer’s case, the “best response” by students would have been “an empty auditorium.”

 

He added that he’s noticed “a trend” nationwide where universities have dis-invited certain speakers that espouse controversial opinions, such as conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, who has said that the majority of Muslims have been “radicalized” and tweeted “Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage.”

 

“I think that’s a sign of weakness on behalf of school administrators and I think that demonstrates a lack of commitment to free exchange of ideas," DeSantis said. "There can’t be a safe space in the business world.”

 

Experts in campus free speech emphasized that the Chicago statement doesn’t have teeth, though it can be a positive first step in affirming institution’s commitment to free speech regardless of the speech’s content.

 

“It’s unequivocally a positive step in the right direction for a public institution to affirm this is what they think about these issues,” said Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has done policy and legal work on behalf of students whose speech rights were infringed upon on campus.

 

“But they (universities) also need to do the hard work of comparing their policies to the principles reflected in the statement.”

But Jonathan Friedman, the campus free speech project director for PEN America, a national group of writers and human rights advocates which has published a report on campus free speech, says that universities should not feel pressure to remain neutral on all issues in an effort to have open speech.

 

“Having a conversation about free speech alone ... without discussing the tensions that exist can inflame other issues like racism and hateful speech on campus,” Friedman said. “If there’s someone on campus promoting hate … we would want the university to be able to say, ‘We don’t agree with this person and here are all the reasons why.’”

 

The announcement came at a time when bills are moving through the Florida Legislature (Senate Bill 1296 and House Bill 839) that would require each of the state’s public universities, to conduct an annual “assessment” looking at “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity at that institution.”

 

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, has pointed to a University of Colorado survey as the inspiration for the proposal, which polled students and faculty on whether they felt the school promoted an environment respectful of all people of all identities and opinions. As part of that survey, students and faculty were also asked to anonymously identify their race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation and political party.

 

And just last month, President Donald Trump issued a broad executive order on the topic of university free speech, asking federal agencies to make sure that colleges or universities that receive federal grants “promote free inquiry." If not, those grants could be at risk.

 

When signing the order, Trump said “professors and power structures” are keeping students from “challenging rigid far-left ideology.”

 

DeSantis said on Monday that he agrees that university faculty tend to lean leftward, though he said that should not matter.

 

“I’ve had liberal professors over the years who were very fair about putting forward the alternative viewpoints," he said.

 

Both Cohn and Friedman said it’s very important that elected leaders don’t politicize discussions surrounding the First Amendment.

 

“Whats really important is that we avoid the hypocrisy emanating around the Trump administration where Trump himself ... calls for journalists, for people who disagree with him to be punished,” Friedman said. “It’s really important that universities help students and others to start to see free expression as allied to causes of diversity and inclusion rather than in tension with them.”

House advances bill that would require school districts to share referendum money with charters

[Miami Herald file photo]

 

The Ways and Means Committee in the Florida House voted to approve a major tax package on Thursday which would require school districts to share additional revenue with charter schools that is the result of local referendums to raise property taxes.

 

The measure, House Bill 7123, would affect Miami-Dade, Broward, Pinellas, and about a dozen other districts around the state which have had these types of voter-approved raises. Those districts would be required, starting in the upcoming budget year, to spread that wealth to charter schools, which are financed by taxpayers but managed by private entities.

 

 

The chair of the committee is Rep. Bryan Avila, a Republican from the Miami area, where the school district is currently undergoing negotiations over a successful November ballot measure that was intended to give teachers a raise.

 

But school officials in Miami-Dade have said that they would not be granting that extra money for teacher salaries to charters, though they would consider sharing a portion for school security measures.

 

“We did not hear one piece of testimony whatsoever from anybody here from somebody from a school board. And I think that’s telling," said Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill during Thursday’s meeting. “It’s because they know, deep down, that what they attempted to do with cutting out these charter schools was absolutely wrong, unethical, immoral and trying to skirt the law."

 

Under this bill, if districts do not share their property tax referendum money with charter schools, the state may withhold other monies.

 

The tax bill passed without any amendments, despite several from Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, which would have changed the portion referring to charter schools. Her suggested changes would have either removed that section completely, or required charter schools to use the extra funds for the purpose outlined in the referendums, or at least stated that districts will not held responsible for misuse of referendum funds by charter schools.

 

Republicans on the committee said her accountability suggestions were unnecessary and would be addressed by either the local district or the existing law.

“Obviously the school districts, before they have a referendum, should look to statute and model their referendums after the statute and not the other way around,” Avila said. “It’s up to us to provide that clarity.”

 

But Eskamani said this piece was “ideologically driven.”

 

The bill “doesn’t give any type of reflection on the fact that you have some charter schools that have made poor decisions,” she said. “If you’re going to make an accusation of bad actors on one side of the debate know that there are bad actors on all sides and that’s a worthy area to address. But that’s not what this debate was focused on.”

 

The bill had not yet been assigned to any other committee by Thursday afternoon.

House voucher expansion bill passes its first committee after emotional debate

Miami Herald file photo

A House bill that would create a new publicly funded private school voucher passed its first committee on Thursday, with only two of the committee’s Democrats against it.

 

“This bill right here is the reason why I ran for the Legislature,” said Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Naples, who’s a prominent school choice advocate. “It’s about favoring the parents who have one goal in mind: the best education of their children ... It’s a crime we have not done this sooner.”

 

The House bill, like its Senate companion, proposes to create a new voucher called the Family Empowerment Scholarship, which is designed to eliminate the waiting list of about 14,000 low-income students for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. Both chambers propose to fund the voucher through general revenue dollars typically set aside for school districts.

 

However, the House version represents a much more aggressive approach. Rather than offer 14,000 vouchers — like the Senate does — to match the number of students on the wait list, the House proposes to fund double, at 28,000 vouchers for the next school year.

 

The House also would allow families from a much broader income bracket to be eligible. The House bill would allow families making up to 300 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $77,250 for a family of four, to apply for the voucher, according to the bill analysis. That income threshold would steadily rise over time, allowing families that make up to $96,572 to participate in the 2022-2023 school year.

 

The Senate proposed a cutoff around $67,000 for next school year and does not raise its threshold over time.

 

One teacher, Aimee Smith of Hardy County, cried during her testimony before the committee, saying this program would further cause underfunded public schools to lose out on even more money during a mounting teacher shortage.

 

“Sometimes it feels, as public school teachers, the state has tied an anchor to our ankles and parents get mad when we cant swim as fast as the private schools,” she said. “I implore you to focus on funding our public education system and not vouchers.”

 

Despite the passionate opposition, several parents as well as a representative of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity advocated for going even further, and eventually offering vouchers to all of Florida’s students regardless of their income. Some lawmakers agreed.

 

“If I have any criticism of this bill at all it’s that we’re not doing this for everybody," said Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, after praising the measure.

 

Despite several Democrats on the committee voicing concerns with the high income levels allowed to participate in the new voucher, only two Democrats of the four who were present voted against the bill.

 

“The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program was initially sold as an attempt to help the children of low-income parents get out of failing schools,” said Rep. Bruce Antone, D-Orlando. “Now we’re raising the income limit ... At what point in time do we stop?”

 

Because of a previous Florida Supreme Court precedent that struck down school vouchers funded through general revenue dollars, there’s much debate over whether this bill would be considered constitutional. The new, more conservative supreme court could reverse the old precedent.

 

Rep. Jennifer Sullivan, R-Mount Dora, who chairs the committee, said she believes the bill is constitutional.

 

“The first step is to pass it," she said. “Then it’s up to the courts."

Florida House files bill with broader school voucher expansion than the Senate’s proposal

EVE EDELHEIT | Times Students work in a classroom at Brighton Preparatory School in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, May 3, 2016.

 

The Florida House Education committee filed a major education bill Tuesday evening that would create a new private school voucher paid for by general revenue dollars in an aggressive expansion of voucher programs much broader than what was proposed by the Senate.

 

Even though the Legislative session is only in its second week, already, both chambers have proposed major education packages that promise to bring heated debate over the issue of using public dollars to help families send their kids to private schools. After the Senate proposed their bill, the House companion has been eagerly awaited.

 

READ MORE: Florida Senate Republicans propose new voucher, changes to teacher bonus program

 

But, according to the bill analysis, the House version would offer 28,000 of the new vouchers, called the Family Empowerment Scholarship, for next school year. That’s about double what the Senate pitched for its first year of the program. Both plans are designed to eliminate the waiting list of about 14,000 students currently approved to receive the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which is offered to low-income families.

 

The House goes beyond that waiting list figure by offering vouchers to families that make up to 300 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $77,250 for a family of four, according to the bill analysis. That income threshold would steadily rise over time, allowing families that make up to $96,572 to participate in the 2022-2023 school year.

 

The Senate proposed a cutoff around $67,000 for next school year and does not raise its threshold over time.

 

The other major difference between the two chambers is that the House’s bill is limited only to the expansion and revision of school vouchers. Meanwhile, the Senate has consistently said they were taking a “balanced approach” to this issue by providing a package bill that creates the new voucher but also beefs up the teacher bonus program and allows districts increased flexibility to build new construction, which districts have long desired.

 

This House bill is scheduled to be heard for the first time on Thursday in the House Education committee.

 

RELATED COVERAGE: Ron DeSantis and GOP poised to redefine Florida public education

Florida House takes microscope to university and college construction

SCOTT KEELER | Times FOR FILE- Aerial of Florida State University campus with Doak Campbell Stadium in the foreground, Tallahassee.

 

Two days after Florida House Speaker José Oliva criticized higher education’s “endless appetite for new construction," colleges and universities appeared before a House committee to justify their requests for state funds to build or renovate buildings.

 

They faced a meticulous financial questioning about each project on Thursday, and House Higher Education Appropriations committee chair Rep. Randy Fine said that process would continue for the next two weeks.

 

The questioning spurred universities and colleges to bring out the big guns — Florida State University President John Thrasher, a former speaker of the Florida House and Florida Atlantic University Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, former president of the Florida Senate, both attended. So did a slew of other college presidents and provosts, in addition to the usual cadre of lobbyists.

 

“This is not a kabuki exercise, this is a legitimate exercise to vet these projects," Fine said. “I think some projects did a great job of justifying themselves, and may be frankly, to me a no-brainer. Others, I still have some questions.”

 

Thrasher said he felt the process was appropriate scrutiny over how the institutions use taxpayer money. After it was discovered that the University of Central Florida and others improperly used operational dollars for construction, the Florida House has turned up the heat.

 

READ MORE: University of Central Florida accepts president Dale Whittaker’s resignation after spending scandal

 

But Thrasher also said he hopes the Legislature will continue to recognize that the universities are investments for the good of the entire state. Lawmakers in past years have challenged Florida’s universities to rise in national rankings, which several, including FSU, have done.

 

“Our overall point is to try to reach a higher level of expertise,” he said. “We think (the construction projects) will be beneficial to the university system and to the state of Florida, for that matter.”

 

Many of the projects under scrutiny have already begun with an initial investment of state dollars. However, that doesn’t mean that the state has an obligation to fund the rest of the construction. Among the projects addressed were: a new data sciences facility and new music building at the University of Florida; a business studies building, an interdisciplinary facility and a sciences lab at Florida State University.

 

Miami-Dade College’s executive vice president and provost Lenore Rodicio also presented, making the case for funding so the college can renovate its law enforcement training facility as well as a building it will use to train students to engineer and fix Tesla electric cars.