From the Miami Herald
BY KATHLEEN McGRORY
TALLAHASSEE -- The charter school movement flexed its legislative muscle Monday, taking a big step toward winning more funding from the state.
After an hour of intense debate, the Senate Education Committee approved a controversial bill requiring local school districts to share their construction and maintenance money with charter schools.
Under current law, only traditional public schools can levy property taxes for building and maintenance. Charter schools — which receive tax dollars, but are run by independent governing boards — cannot.
Florida school districts fought hard to defeat the bill, saying it would all but kill their ability to pay down debt on existing construction projects. Parent groups chimed in too, saying public dollars should not go to charter school facilities, which are often owned by private companies and are not part of the public domain.
Broward County schools lobbyist Georgia Slack called the bill “a disaster to our capital outlay program.”
“This will cost us $20 million” a year Slack said. “We don’t have it.”
Miami-Dade officials said they would likely lose out on about $45 million yearly.
But in the end, the charter schools won the round, arguing that children enrolled in charter schools deserve the same amount of tax dollars as children in traditional public schools.
“This is an issue of fair and equitable education for all students,” said Doral Academy Charter Middle/High Principal Doug Rodriguez, who spoke on behalf of the bill. “What, in essence, not sharing the millage has done is put a cap on our schools.”
When the charter school movement began more than a decade ago, charter schools vowed to do more with less. But when the economy tumbled – and all public schools underwent dramatic cuts — charter schools began asking for equal funding.
Much has changed between then and now. Miami-Dade and Broward are now home to more than 200 charter schools. Their enrollment accounts for 10 percent of all children in South Florida public schools.
In addition to growing in size, the charter school movement has made powerful friends in Tallahassee. Some charter advocates have made big contributions to politicians and political parties. Companies owned by
South Florida charter school entrepreneur Fernando Zulueta, for example, have donated $100,000 to the Republican Party of Florida since October.
Equitable funding sits atop the charter school’s legislative agenda this year.
But the proposal has been controversial — so much so that the House version of the bill was watered down last week, and the provision about sharing construction and maintenance money was removed.
But the language remained in the Senate version.
“We’re still not giving the right amount of money per student,” said Sen. Stephen Wise, R-Jacksonville, the bill’s sponsor.
More than 80 people signed up to speak at the Senate hearing, including parents of students in charters and traditional public schools.
Sen. Bill Montford, the lone Democrat on the committee with fellow Democratic Sen. Larcenia Bullard excused, filed 13 amendments to the bill. Only one was heard because Wise limited discussion to one hour.
That amendment, which would have allowed traditional public schools to keep the construction and maintenance dollars, failed.
“If this bill is passed [without amendments], this will result in an increase of financial stress on our school district’s debt burden,” said Montford, who is also the chief executive officer of the Florida Associations of District School Superintendents.
Montford noted that charter schools received $55 million from the state’s Public Education Capital Outlay fund last year, while traditional public schools received nothing.
Ultimately, the committee gave thumbs up to the bill — and was able to adjourn the meeting 30 minutes early, even after having cut off the debate.
Wise said calling for the vote so early was “my mistake.”
He said he would work with Montford to incorporate some of his other amendments into a later version of the bill.
Miami Herald staff writer Scott Hiaasen contributed to this report. Kathleen McGrory can be reached at kmcgrory@MiamiHerald.com
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/06/2628263/charter-schools-seek-construction.html#storylink=cpy
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