TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida is being forced to stagger payments to schools and health care providers because of limits with its 30-year old computer-based accounting system. State officials took the drastic actions because the current system can’t pay out $1 billion or more in a single 24-hour period. The state was forced to delay…
Learning disabled students can get up to $19,829 of taxpayer money each year to attend private school if they choose – but there is no state accountability to ensure the kids’ needs are being met. The law that created the vouchers does not require private schools to have anyone on staff with any sort of…
A sweeping lawsuit that argues Florida failed to adequately fund its public education system should be amended so that the state’s support of voucher programs and charter schools can also be challenged, attorneys for the plaintiffs said today. They have asked the court to allow them to amend the lawsuit, filed in 2009. The lawsuit…
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott signed a $77 billion budget Monday, the largest in Florida history, and protected hundreds of millions of dollars in hometown projects by his fellow Republicans in the Legislature. Scott’s use of the line-item veto was his most surgical yet, as he trimmed only $69 million in spending and preserved spending…
TAMPA — Gov. Rick Scott will bring his re-election campaign to Tampa on Tuesday to tout a new state budget with $574 million in increased education spending along with $500 million in tax cuts. What Scott isn’t mentioning is that while the new budget cuts some taxes, it includes an increase of almost as much,…
Now, in the final week of the session, lawmakers have about $1.2 billion in surplus, bonus money that can go pretty much anywhere they choose. That fact has stirred loose an avalanche of hometown projects, the likes of which Tallahassee hasn’t seen in an election year since 2006. “Think about it: What’s the average size…
The House advanced a sweeping overhaul of the Florida Retirement System Thursday, setting it for a key floor vote Friday as a major bargaining chip in late negotiations with the Senate during the final week of the 2014 legislative session. “This narrow approach to pension reform will save taxpayers about $28 billion over 30 years,”…
TALLAHASSEE — It’s become one of the perennial fights in the Florida Legislature. In one corner: cash-strapped school systems with aging facilities and billions of dollars tied up in debt service. In the other: charter schools looking to build and refurbish facilities of their own. Both want dollars from the Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO)…