HB7123 is a Bridge Too Far and President Lee is Fed Up.

Late Friday night, the Florida Senate passed HB7123, the annual tax package which included the usual Back-to-School and Hurricane Preparedness Sales Tax Holidays. This year, it also included controversial language that would require school districts, in any voter approved referendum passing AFTER July 1, 2019, to share discretionary millages for “school operational purpose” with charter schools. Such language amends the current Model Florida Charter School Application, which allowed the sharing of any local voter approved operating millage at the district’s discretion.

Former Senate President Tom Lee, a Republican representing the 20th district, who had previously supported all kinds of school choice legislation, felt this, shoved into the tax package at the final hours, might be “a bridge too far.”

You can watch his debate on the item here (at 24:30). This is what he said:

“…I’m feeling beaten up down here and ready to go home, honestly, but I think this is important:

For the past several years, about this time session, I’ve picked up this microphone, or one at another desk, wherever I was sitting… I’ve been around here awhile and I wondered when I did, whether I’d picked it up for the last time and I feel that way tonight… So I want to be honest with you, tonight, I know that it’s rare in this institution, rare in the legislature, period, that anything said in debate moves a vote. Most of us have a pretty settled view on issues of… that are, sort of, high visibility issues. But I rise this evening to debate the issue of charter schools in this tax package.

I think it’s wrong. I think it’s a bridge too far and I think it is time that we use some common sense, take off our partisan hats, and listen to a story about how we got her and ask yourself, is it just a bunch of spin that you’re hearing… just a bunch of Koolaid that people have been selling us, for years, and we’ve heard it so many times that we’ve forgotten the truth? Does this industry really deserve another injection of capital outlay?”

For the record, HB7123 demanded the sharing of local funding earmarked for “operational purposes” not capital outlay.

In 2019, in response with a meager 47 CENTS increase in Base Student Allocation, districts around the State of Florida went to their local voters and passed local school funding referenda. In Miami-Dade, voters approved Referendum 362, to raise teacher’s salaries and improve school safety and security. The charter school industry, led by Miami-Dade legislators Rep. Bryan Avila and Senator Manny Diaz, Jr. (both with ties to corporate charter giant, Academica), were particularly irritated they were shut out of the funding and vowed to find a “legislative solution” that would force Miami-Dade Public Schools to share the voter approved levy with its charter schools.

Senator Lee continued:

I mean no offense to anyone… I have supported every charter school program, I have supported every school choice program that this legislature has offered up since 1997, when charter schools began. I believe in them. I think school choice has done wonders for creating competition and a marketplace in our education system that’s improved efficiency and performance in the public education system and we wouldn’t be where we are today without it. So I am no opponent of the concept it was put in the statute over 20 years ago that has given rise to the plethora of student choice options that exist in this state and ones that have been added since .

But let’s be honest, blatantly honest, the charter school industry would have us believe what Senator Bradley has parroted tonight, “charter school are public schools.”  Well, charter schools are certainly run by a public school district but they are contract schools… they are contract schools by charter. By contract they are authorized by a school district to operate and that contract sets out the terms and conditions under  which they will perform their duties and those duties are NOTHING like the duties of public education  They don’t have the same job. It’s an apples and oranges comparison. They don’t have to deal with ESOL or SREF or ESE or Transporatation or testing or collective bargaining … and so they BOAST of being able to do the job cheaper but why the hell shouldn’t they be able to? It’s not the same job, it’s not even close.

Definitions:

• ESOL = English for Speakers of Other Languages
• SREF = State Requirements for Educational Facilities (building requirement for public schools)
• ESE = Exceptional Student Education of “Special Ed”

Also, for the record, charter school students are required to take the same state mandated standardized tests for accountability purposes and participate in the School Grade calculations.

Senator Lee continued:

And again, I don’t want to re-litigate the pros and cons of charter schools because I’m a supporter… I am.

Some people would have us believe that a lot of this is necessitated by some economic issues. I think Senator Stargel mentioned this morning something: “somehow, well, as the economy recovers, and the FEFP… maybe we won’t need to do so much of this in the future,”

Well… I’d like to believe that’s true but we’re up 5 Billion dollars, Senator Stargel, from peak to peak, going in to the recession to today… We’re up $5 billion of GR (General Revenue) and so if we haven’t put money into public education system we need to buy a mirror and look into it. It’s not because the economy hasn’t improved and our tax base hasn’t improved, and our sale tax hasn’t improved and that our GR hasn’t gone from $29 Billion to $34 Billion… it’s because we haven’t prioritized it.

What bothers me about this is bigger than any of that. It is that this industry hasn’t been honest with us, and I’m fed up… I just am fed up… I’ve heard it one time too many. They signed these contracts with our local school districts and they said that they could educate our children for 95% of the FTE or whatever that number is over time. And every year since, they’ve come to this legislature to move to goal posts. They wanted PECO, and we gave them PECO. They wanted 1.5 mil money, we gave them that. And now they want a part of the local option millage and we’re gonna give them that.

Well I’ll tell you what… I don’t know about you all but, to me, that is just intellectually dishonest. And I’m wondering when this Senate will stand up and say “enough is enough.”

So, Mr. President, I’ve seen some of these charter school leases, maybe you all have… not all of them, I’m no expert in charter school leases but I’ve see a couple of corporate charter school leases… let me tell you about those leases. They are triple net leases, every nickel paid to those charter school real estate companies goes to their net operating income. They have no responsibilities for property taxes, maintenance, nothing. And guess what’s happening, senators, we’re getting about 10-15 years into this charter school movement, and deferred maintenance is beginning to be a problem… air conditioning is breaking, schools have to get repainted… roofs have to be put on new schools, thank goodness, right? And, so, someone’s got to pay for those costs and it is not the real estate play or transaction that pays those costs… it is going to be the operator, so they come to this legislature to ask us to finance the deferred maintenance on these facilities and I, for one, am not doing it.

I’m not doing it this year.

So tonight, senators, for the first time that I’ve ever stood on this floor over a tax package, I’m voting NO.  I’m NOT confused how I’m voting, I’m voting NO and I hope we have a couple of people in the Republican caucus that will separate from this ideologue mentality … that’s blindly walked… behind these charter schools, every single year, and done exactly what they asked us to do, and stand against them for one time.

Just one time, and send a message .

And I don’t do it because I don’t like charter schools, I do it as a matter of principle. It’s time they stopped moving the goal posts on us, rewriting the deal every year, and thinking they can come up here and do an end run around the contract they signed, with our school districts and said they would educate our school children for a certain amount of money and want us to write a check to them for the additional needs they have. That’s not the way business is done and I’m not supporting it and I hope, I pray, a couple of you guys will stand up and be counted tonight.”

In the end, none of his Senate Republican colleagues joined him… the bill passed and is headed to the Governor for his signature. These are the senators who voted Yes (Y):

Thank you Senator Lee. We, too, are fed up. Florida has refused to prioritize public education for years. We wish more legislators would take off their “partisan hats” and ask themselves: “Is it just a bunch of Koolaid that people have been selling you, for years, and you’ve heard it so many times that you’ve forgotten the truth?”

We agree, trampling the local control of voter approved school millages, is “a bridge too far.”