Before We Revamp the FEFP, Let’s Understand It
Two guides to Florida’s school funding formula: what works, what has changed, and what needs fixing.
In a recent Miami Herald article, State Representative Alex Rizo suggested the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) was due for a “revamp.”
“It’s an old formula, and there’s been a lot that’s happened since its inception,” Rizo said.
He’s certainly right about how much has changed.
The FEFP, established in 1973, is Florida’s principal method of funding public education. At the time, Florida’s educational landscape looked very different. Approximately 1.54 million students attended Florida’s public schools. Homeschooling was uncommon, private schools generally operated outside the public education funding system, and today’s charter schools, virtual schools, and voluntary prekindergarten program did not yet exist.
Florida’s public schools had also only recently undergone widespread court-ordered desegregation. The FEFP emerged during an era when equal educational opportunity was an urgent constitutional and civil rights concern.
The FEFP was designed to provide substantially equal educational opportunities for students regardless of where they lived in Florida. It recognized that students have different educational needs and that school districts differ in local economic conditions, geographic characteristics, and their ability to raise revenue from property taxes.
To accomplish this, the FEFP combined state funds, primarily from General Revenue, with local funds generated through property taxes. A statutory formula determined how operating funds would be allocated among Florida’s 67 school districts.
The goal of the formula was equity.
Over the following five decades, Florida’s educational landscape changed dramatically. The state added new educational options, and the Legislature repeatedly modified the FEFP to accommodate changes in how education is delivered and financed.
Most significantly, the FEFP now includes Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES) recipients attending private schools or receiving other authorized educational services. Public charter schools are also funded through the formula, with district-sponsored charters generally receiving applicable operating funds through their sponsoring school districts.
The formula that began as a means of distributing operating funds equitably among public school districts now also plays a central role in financing private education scholarships and option.
Today, the 2026–27 FEFP First Calculation includes approximately 3.2 million full-time equivalent students, including nearly 500,000 FES scholarship recipients. More than 400,000 students attend Florida’s public charter schools. Outside the FEFP’s full-time enrollment calculations, Florida also has more than 150,000 students registered in traditional home education programs and approximately 80,000 participating in the Personalized Education Program (PEP), funded through the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program.
Understanding how the FEFP has evolved alongside expanding publicly funded education options is essential to understanding both its original strengths and the challenges it faces today.
It is equally important to understand what the formula does and what it does not do.
The FEFP serves as a mechanism for distributing available education funds equitably. It does not independently calculate the full cost of providing a high-quality education or determine whether the Legislature has appropriated sufficient funding to meet Florida’s constitutional obligation.
A funding formula can distribute resources equitably without necessarily providing adequate resources.
Before It Is Revamped, the FEFP Must Be Understood
Florida legislators sometimes describe the FEFP as so complicated that nobody understands it.
Certainly, its annual worksheets and many specialized allocations are technical. Deciding how much funding individual programs should receive is a difficult policy choice.
But the basic mechanics are surprisingly straightforward.
Florida counts students, adjusts for differences in their educational programs and district circumstances, determines each district’s calculated funding, and divides responsibility between state and local sources.
For more than 50 years, this framework has provided a means of distributing education funding among 67 counties with widely varying student populations, property wealth, and educational needs.
There is much about the FEFP that works. There are also legitimate concerns about how recent changes have affected its original equalization purpose, particularly as the formula has been adapted to finance an expanding voucher system.
Those issues deserve serious discussion. But meaningful discussion begins with understanding what the formula actually does.
It is time to get educated about the FEFP.
Two Resources to Help
I’ve created two documents to help school board members, legislators, education advocates, and interested citizens better understand Florida’s school funding system.
1. Understanding Florida’s FEFP: The Essentials
A four-page overview of how the formula works, what it gets right, the challenges it faces, and how it could be strengthened.
This is the place to start. It explains the basic principles of the FEFP without requiring readers to work through pages of legislative funding calculations.
It also addresses some important questions: What is the difference between funding equity and adequacy? How has the expansion of Universal School Choice changed the formula? What reforms might improve transparency and financial stability for both districts and scholarship programs?
2. Understanding Florida’s School Funding System: A Guide to the FEFP
A more detailed guide to the formula, its funding components, and how Florida’s education financing system has evolved.
This guide is for readers who want to dig deeper (I’m looking at YOU, Legislators!). It explains student funding weights, the Base Student Allocation, supplemental and categorical funding, state and local contributions, charter school funding, and Family Empowerment Scholarships.
It also includes worked examples, a glossary, and appendices examining historical changes to the formula, including the consolidation of categorical allocations and changes in program cost factors.
[Link to the complete FEFP guide]
Understand It. Question It. Help Improve It.
My purpose in creating these documents is not to suggest that the FEFP is perfect or that it should never change. Quite the opposite.
Florida’s education financing system has evolved, and there are important questions about whether recent changes have preserved the formula’s original commitment to equity, whether funding is adequate, and whether its increasingly complex calculations provide sufficient transparency and predictability.
I hope readers will use these resources to become more informed participants in those discussions.
Read them. Share them with fellow school board members, educators, advocates, parents and interested citizens. Use them to ask questions about how education funds are calculated, where they go, and whether changes to the formula actually improve educational opportunity.
And, perhaps most importantly, share what you learn with your legislators, especially those responsible for making decisions about education funding.
When someone proposes to “revamp” the FEFP, we should be prepared to ask: What problem are we trying to solve? What does the current formula get right? What would the proposed changes improve, and what might we lose?
The FEFP is too important to change without understanding it first.
Author’s note: I am an experienced public education advocate and elected school board member, but not an education finance expert. These resources reflect my understanding of Florida’s school funding system and are accurate to the best of my knowledge as of October 2026.more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article317525875.html#storylink=cpy