DeSantis education budget targets teacher pay and maintains low tuition

The Stone Education building on the Florida State University campus is the home of its College of Education. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix)

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new recommended state budget proposes nearly $30 billion for K-12 education and a $222 per student funding increase for next school year.

DeSantis rolled out his plan Sunday evening, a month before lawmakers convene in Tallahassee. 

DeSantis proposes the state spend $3 billion less next year than it is spending now

DeSantis proposed a $1.3 billion increase for the Florida Education Finance Program, which allocates K-12 funds. The governor proposed $29.7 billion for the coming fiscal year, up from the 2024-2025 fiscal year’s allocation of $28.4 billion. 

The state estimates nearly 358,000 students will participate in the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, a scholarship providing state dollars to pay private school tuition, and more than 3.2 million students enrolled across the state. 

In the current fiscal year, $3.9 billion went to school choice scholarships, including $2.8 billion from the Florida Education Finance Program, the rest funded by tax credit scholarships, according to a Florida Policy Institute report. 

The per pupil investment would rise to $9,205 in the governor’s proposed budget, a $222 increase from the $8,959 in the current fiscal year.

The Florida Education Association recommends more funding. 

“By investing just $1,000 more per student each year into the Florida Education Finance Program, we can ensure our students have access to a world class public education and get one step closer to moving Florida’s teacher salary ranking into the top 10 instead of the current #50 ranking,” FEA said in its legislative priorities. 

DeSantis’ proposed budget would increase teacher salaries by $246.7 million, making $1.5 billion eligible for raises.

The Florida Education Association argued in June that the current year’s budget increase of $1.25 billion did not do enough to reward experienced teachers and called for the governor to confer with the unions when determining the education budget. The association did not provide comment on the governor’s budget proposal before publication of this article. 

DeSantis said the specified investment in teacher pay helps prevent the money from getting “chewed up by bureaucracy.”

Outside K-12

His proposal would allocate $200 million less, a total of $3.9 billion, for the State University System than it received in the current budget, $4.1 billion. The proposed budget maintains $1.7 billion for the Florida College System, the same as the current year. 

The governor did not propose tuition increases, consistent with his previous six years in office, and called for fully funding $632 million in Bright Futures Scholarships.

“We are very proud of the fact that if you’re a good student and you want to attend one of our state universities and you got the grades and you got the board scores that you can get a free ride or 75% depending on where you’re ranked,” DeSantis said. “That makes getting a quality education without going into debt something that is attainable for all these talented, hard-working students.”

According to U.S. News & World Report, Florida has the cheapest public institution in-state tuition in the United States.

“I don’t think you can get a better education with that price anywhere in the country,” DeSantis said, adding that some private K-12 schools charge more in tuition than Florida public universities charge.

Of note in the governor’s higher education proposals is shifting The Ringling Museum from Florida State University’s ownership to New College of Florida, including the art museum, the Ca’d’Zan building, and the Ringling Museum of the Circus. The museum hosts five paintings in Peter Paul Rubens’ Triumph of the Eucharist series, a majority of that work. The other two are at the Louvre in Paris.

The proposed budget includes $465.8 million for the voluntary pre-kindergarten program, including $30.1 million for rewarding high-performing providers and $4.1 million to support the Summer Bridge Program for lower scoring students. 

The Florida Board of Education established a rating system for pre-K providers in August, the Phoenix reported.