Public school districts across Florida are seeing funding drop as the state spends more on private school voucher programs. This week, Sarasota school leaders said the system is flawed and discussed ways to convince lawmakers to make changes.
In Sarasota alone, $45 million in taxpayer money is being siphoned away from public schools for the 2025-26 school year, toward students in private or home school settings, according to district documents.
When Florida voted in 2023 to expand state-funded scholarships worth about $8,000 for private schools to anyone, regardless of income, lawmakers said it would be a positive move because the money would follow the student.
But it's not working, according to Norin Dollard, senior analyst at the Florida Policy Institute.
"This is really a cut to your public school. It's not abstract. It has real implications for the school your kid goes to or your neighbor's kids go to," she said.
She added that the majority of those who take the vouchers were never in public school.
"It's people who are already in private schools who are taking advantage of it. And I mean, why wouldn't they? It's free money. There's no tax on it. Your accountant would say you should do this," Dollard added.
The Florida Policy Institute has graphics to show how funding for scholarships has skyrocketed across Florida in the past four years, and how the share of state money for public schools has declined while funding for private schools increased.
In Sarasota County, the number of students taking advantage of what's called a Family Empowerment Scholarship rose 40% from 2023-24 to 2024-25, while the taxpayer cost of those vouchers rose from $31 million to $41 million, according to FPI.
There is no cap on enrollment, and further increases are expected next year.
Overall, the expansion of private education vouchers cost Florida $3.9 billion in the current school year, according to the Education Law Center. That included $2.8 billion for Florida Empowerment Scholarship vouchers (FES), and $1.1 billion for Florida Tax Credit Scholarship vouchers (FTC).
Dollard said the Florida Policy Institute projects the overall cost next year to rise to $5 billion.
Only getting worse
Sarasota is among the districts feeling the squeeze. Public school enrollment is projected to decline by about 300 students this year. Meanwhile, costs continue to rise for things like health insurance, property insurance, and utility bills, according to a fact sheet from the district.
Another issue is funding students who were educated in public schools even as their families applied for a scholarship elsewhere, which "has resulted in a funding shortfall of approximately $2.5 million for our district," superintendent Terry Connor said in a statement on a web page called InForm, maintained by the district to detail complex issues facing its schools.
"Nearly 250 students have been counted twice—once under private or home school enrollment and again under our district. The district should have received funding for educating these students, but instead, we are being charged as if they are being educated elsewhere. Currently, there has been no clear adjustment at the state level to correct this discrepancy," Connor said.
On a recent Zoom call with members of the League of Women Voters, Connor noted he is in favor of school choice. But the way Florida is carrying out its expansion has "flaws that need to be worked out."
"We need a level playing field with that. So, whatever the rule, the rules should apply to all. It shouldn't be at the detriment of our finances," Connor said.
To cope with the loss of funding, Sarasota has implemented a hiring freeze, has cut some administrative positions, and restricted travel and other spending.
Asked how students and parents may see the impact of these cuts when schools re-open next week, Connor told WUSF: "I believe that parents and students will see little change in the daily educational experience as the adjustments are mainly to tied positions that are not rostered to students. We were very intentional to protect the students from experiencing impacts."
Can the money follow the student?
At a school board workshop on Tuesday, members discussed how years of asking lawmakers to "fully fund" public schools haven't been successful.
Sarasota's supervisor of government affairs, Chris Parenteau, said lobbying has focused on reducing mandates, allocating more money for teacher salaries, pinning funding increases to the consumer price index to make sure they are enough to cover costs, and creating a separate "district" for private school funding to increase transparency.
Going forward, rather than asking for specific items, all of those things could be included in a single appeal to "ensure adequate and accurate funding for all students statewide," Parenteau said.
It would require, in part, asking for a new system to track how public money is spent on students, whether in public, charter, private or homeschool situations.
Parenteau suggested asking the Florida Department of Education to implement "a modern student information system to track all publicly funded students, which will allow for the accurate funding and accountability of money distribution. So the money truly does follow the students," he told the school board.
"If students are leaving us, the money follows them. If they're coming to us from somewhere else, the money follows them. If they leave and come back, the money follows them, which is what the legislature has said over and over again is their intent, and a modern student information tracking system will help tremendously with that," he added.
School board members from both parties said they like the idea.
"I am so impressed because you created new language to strike 'fully fund' and ensure adequate and accurate funding, which is great," said school board member Bridget Ziegler, one of the original co-founders of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty.
Liz Barker, a former school psychologist who defeated conservative Karen Rose for her school board seat last year, also agreed with the approach.
"I really would love for us to go together to Tallahassee to advocate for our students, and I wanted to know if we could talk about a timeline for that," Barker said.
Parenteau said the full board can vote on the proposal on Aug. 19. Committee meetings at the state level begin in October, ahead of the start of the legislative session in January.
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