WMBB News 13 - The Panhandle's News LeaderSchool Board Member Travels to Tallahassee to Voice Concerns

The Florida House of Representatives had their second reading of its budget Wednesday, which included its proposal to give $1.1 billion dollars back to education and Bay District School Board member Steve Moss made an appearance at the state capital expressing his concerns to our area Representative Marti Coley.  

Not only is Marti Coley our area representative, but she also serves as the chair for the education budget committee, so as the School Board Legislative Liaison, Moss saw it as a golden opportunity to come here to the capital and talk to her one on one. 

It was about a fifteen minute conversation that relieved some stress for Bay District School Board Member Steve Moss, who had a lot of tough questions for Representative Marti Coley.  

"The biggest questions I had for her had to do with the budget, especially money and the funding that we can expect from Tallahassee," Moss said. 

Doing what the Governor asked, the Pre-K through 12 Appropriations Committee, which Coley is the chair of, passed a budget that would give $1.1 billion dollars back to education.  

"We are just now starting in our budget in Bay County now and we are definitely excited seeing the numbers that we are as opposed to previous year," Moss told Coley. 

Moss also brought up concerns over unfunded mandates and the allocation of PECO dollars, which is mainly for construction. Last year, traditional public schools lost that money while charter schools got it. This year there's another bill that would force the school districts to allocation additional capital funds to charters, as much as $2 million dollars for Bay County, regardless if the charter schools need it or not.  

"The issue has been these are still public schools, but we have never been able to give them the ability to do so, either they will have to share or the PECO dollars will continue going to them," Coley explained to Moss. 

Moss took Coley's response as an either/or scenario, share the capital and PECO funds or continue to leave the PECO funds just for the charter schools. It's these kinds of discussions with school districts Coley says she wants more of.  

"I think that's important that we continue to communicate so that there is no misunderstanding no miscommunication what we do up here directly effects them and that's important,"  Coley said.  

Moss was also here in Tallahassee yesterday speaking with Representative Jimmy Patronis as well. He says the two day trip to the capital was a success and he can't wait to share the discussion with the school board at their next meeting.