STATEWIDE — How is the coronavirus pandemic impacting Florida school districts and their budget?
What You Need To Know
- Districts grappling with paying for increased safety costs
- State, local funding has evaporated as tax revenue dwindled
- RELATED: Superintendents on Fall Funding: We Have Some Difficult Decisions Ahead
It’s a situation that's ever-evolving, but according to the superintendents Spectrum News 13 has spoken with, the impact is significant.
“How significant of an investment is this compared to any other venture? It is a significant investment," Osceola County School District Superintendent, Dr. Debra Pace says. "While we have a $1.3 billion budget, and that seems like such a tremendous amount of money, I always tend to calculate expenses in terms of positions. About a million dollars is about nine teachers. When you talk about spending almost $7 million on supplies, you’re looking at 63 instructional positions that we would have potentially been able to add to our budget, so it is a very significant investment.
"But our board has been determined to make safety a priority and not let the burden fall to our teachers or our families.”
As it stands now for the 2020-2021 Osceola County school year, the district is projecting that for the total budget:
- 45% will be paid for by the state
- 42% will be paid for by local funding sources
- 13% will be paid for by federal funding sources
If you take a look at the school district’s website, the operating budget by category goes into detail about where that funding will go.
As you can guess, there is no line item for "pandemic."
So where will the district find that funding?
At the local level, with the tourism industry at a standstill for months, Pace says last month alone, Osceola County had a 40% drop in sales tax collections. At the state level, Florida’s tax revenue has also dramatically dropped.
Pace and other superintendents tell Spectrum News 13 the financial fall is why additional federal CARES Act funding is so crucial when it comes to keeping schools safely and successfully open for the entire upcoming academic year.
To date, Osceola County Public Schools has received a little more than $17.3 million in CARES Act funding for all schools, including private and charter schools.
Pace says she’s very concerned about her district's ability to keep schools open safely and successfully without additional federal help.