WMBB News 13 - The Panhandle's News LeaderPanel Shoots Down Charter Construction Funding

Panel Shoots Down Charter Construction Funding

A House subcommittee shot down language that would have allowed charter schools to tap local education construction funds, maintaining a significant gap in language between the two chambers on the legislation.

On a 7-7 tie vote that included opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, the House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee rebuffed an effort to return a pared-back version of the language to the bill (HB 903).

The original provision, which would have given charter schools a share of local capital outlay dollars on a per-student basis, was removed in a committee substitute crafted by the K-20 Innovation Subcommittee.

The overall bill, which would impose new accountability on charter schools and allow state colleges to create charters, passed 11-3 after the construction-funding amendment was defeated.

The construction language is still in the Senate version of the legislation (SB 1852).

Supporters of sharing the funds with charter schools say the charters are also public schools and that the construction money, which school districts rarely share, should be available for charter students as well.

Rep. Janet Adkins, the Fernandina Beach Republican who sponsored the measure, noted that the slice of state utility-tax money being used for charter school construction has remained flat over the last year even as the number of schools has grown.

"Actually, I think that -- if we don't do anything -- that our charter schools will actually go away," Adkins said.

But school districts have pushed back, saying that the measures would cut into their ability to fund school maintenance and construction at the same time that the state is cutting back on funding for those areas.

And they pointed out that the provision would technically punish school districts that have been most welcoming of charter schools, because those districts would stand to lose the most.


"I believe in the long run, this can drive a wedge between us and charter schools, and that is not the way it's supposed to be done," said Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association. " ... Right now, we're not having a food fight. We're fighting over the bones."

The proposal also ran into concerns from Republicans and Democrats on the panel worried about how it could impact public schools and the differences in expectations for charter and traditional public schools.

"You've got bipartisan support for the intent," said Subcommittee Chairwoman Marti Coley, R-Marianna, "but great concern on both sides of the substance." Coley voted against the amendment.

Even many of the supporters of the amendment said they were approving the change only to get the bill to the next stop, where language that would satisfy all sides could be hammered out. Coley suggested after the meeting that the Senate provision was not there.

"At this point, I don't see legislation that has completely satisfied that question," she said.

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Information provided by the News Service of Florida