Tampa Bay Times , Article Link, Published May 1, 2025.
The talk in Tallahassee right now is all about tax cuts, but did you know that Florida will soon face multibillion-dollar budget deficits? I was at the capital recently, and legislators were reluctant to discuss it. We have no choice. It is hurting K-12 education today, and left unchecked it will affect criminal justice, public safety, transportation, health care — any public service. We must tackle the problem head on, but first we need to understand it.
Florida’s Legislative Budget Commission looks three years ahead. While they expect a surplus for fiscal 2025-26, things then quickly turn sour. The commission anticipates deficits of $2.8 billion the following year and $6.9 billion the year after that. Spending on K-12 education is the biggest driver digging that budget hole. (A close second is Medicaid.) Florida public schools have been funded below inflation year-over-year for 20 years, so how can that be?
The answer, in a word, is school vouchers. They have been around for a generation in Florida but in 2023 they expanded beyond all recognition, without the necessary accountability. The cost to taxpayers is now $4 billion and growing, a leading cause of the looming budget crisis.
Vouchers started 25 years ago as a limited program to help students with disabilities fund special services. Soon after, they expanded to include students from low-income families who attended underperforming schools. The program kept morphing and growing to culminate two years ago in “universal vouchers.” Basically, that means vouchers for everybody with no limits for family income, and even those who already attend private schools can get them. Right now, a voucher student receives $9,163.75 to be home-schooled or go to private school without the academic oversight we expect for Florida tax dollars.
Let’s look at Pinellas County, where I am the chairperson of the School Board, for an example of how expanded vouchers impact the public budget. Five years ago, Pinellas had 2,383 voucher students under the more limited program then in place, costing $16.6 million. This coming school year, under vouchers for anyone, we will have 17,912 voucher students at a cost of $168 million. That’s a budget-busting 10-fold increase in just a few years. For context, proposed cuts to some of our most-esteemed programs — the International Baccalaureate program, Advanced Placement courses and all career certification programs — would save only $10 million in Pinellas, while greatly damaging those programs critical to Florida’s future.
What’s going on? Pinellas public schools are not losing students to private schools. In fact, over the past three years, district records show that 1,200 have returned from private schools to our public schools. No, the budget problem is simple: Higher-income students already in private schools are now receiving public tax dollars. At a recent dinner supporting the Boy Scouts, a local private school parent told me, “We didn’t need the money, but the school told us to apply for it.”
To justify vouchers for all, I often hear the argument that “it’s the parents’ money.” Curious, I checked the numbers. In Pinellas County in 2024, the median assessed single family home value was $173,827. That homeowner paid $664 toward K-12 education. A voucher is $9,164. If a household receives one voucher, their neighbors paid $12 for every $1 they paid toward it. If they receive three vouchers, that’s $27,500 in publicly funded private or homeschool education – and $25,500 of it is taxes paid by other people. This is everybody’s money.
I also often hear that parents are the best judge of their children’s needs. As a parent of two children myself, I couldn’t agree more. And since we all agree, let’s ensure that we are getting a return on our investment, as any good enterprise would require. That means accountability, as was drilled into me when I was an officer in the Navy.
Look, we can all name the excellent private schools in our communities, and I’m happy that parents have so many options. Our son attended one of the best until I realized that our national security and economic prosperity rely on excellence in K-12 education, and progress will not be won by opting out. But did you know Pinellas County alone has 149 private schools and seven in 10 are not accredited by any academic agency? Statewide, the percentage is similar. Florida is now spending $4 billion on vouchers. Do we want any of our taxes going to unaccredited schools?
Pinellas public schools are successful. I recently attended a breakfast to honor our best and brightest, including 27 National Merit Scholarship Finalists and graduating seniors who will attend Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Chicago, University of Florida, Florida State University and the University of South Florida, to name just a few. Of course, we also have public schools that struggle — we know this because the academic records are reported and transparent. Our public schools are accountable. Can the same be said for the voucher program?
Maybe it’s time to ask a few questions:
- Should there be an income limit for voucher eligibility? If not, why not?
- Should all schools that receive public funds have to be academically accredited? If not, why not?
- Should all schools that receive public funds have to administer the Florida accountability assessment and receive a school grade just as public schools do? If not, why not?
- Should a homeschool student receiving a voucher be required to take the Florida assessments? If not, why not?
Friends, we have a problem. Because of the massive expansion of vouchers in 2023, Florida has a looming deficit, which is impacting K-12 education and left unaddressed will ultimately affect all public services like criminal justice, health care and transportation. The good news is we can fix it. Consider the questions above. The solution might be in how you answer them.
Laura Hine is chairperson of the Pinellas County School Board. She is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and earned an MBA in finance from USF. Her two children attend Pinellas public schools.
