The number of Flagler County students receiving state subsidies through the so-called “Family Empowerment Scholarship” program reached 2,473 this year, a 28 percent increase over last year and a 261 percent jump since the state universalized vouchers.
Students in private school or in homeschools receive between $7,500 and $9,500 annually in public, unaudited dollars, more if the student has special needs, at a cost of $4.5 billion to taxpayers statewide.
The cost to the district is $17.3 million, up from $14.9 million this year, a 16 percent increase.
Flagler school finance officials issued the figures Wednesday during the brief, annual hearing when the School Board sets next year’s tentative property tax rate and adopts its budget. The board has no control over the tax rate. It is set by state lawmakers.
A couple of caveats regarding the numbers: the number of students receiving vouchers does not equal the number of students leaving the district, or the students who have left the district. A large number of students were in private school to start with, and are now eligible for vouchers. School officials like to point that out to suggest that they are not experiencing a loss of enrollment, or at least not as steep a loss as the numbers imply.
But the rationale is undermined by the district’s own figures. According to the district’s own annual report on planning and concurrency, private school enrollment has increased 139 percent, and homeschool enrollment 86 percent, since 2018, while district enrollment has stayed flat or declined slightly. In other words, almost all of the 2,359 net increase in school-age children in Flagler County since 2018 has gone to private or homeschooling, and in most cases to private schools that did not exist in 2018. The district has failed to capture or prevent that erosion. Vouchers have accelerated the erosion. The district’s enrollment flattened out around 12,500 two decades ago (not including enrollment at the local charter school) and has not recovered since.
The $17.3 million diversion of public funds is not strictly a loss to the district’s budget in the traditional sense. The figure represents the amount of money the state is diverting to private school and homeschool subsidies. The state requires local districts to include that figure in their budgets, even though the district never sees the money.
The tentative general fund budget the Flagler County School Board approved on Wednesday totals $167 million, up from $163.3 million this year. But the total includes the $17.3 million to be awarded private school students, and that the district will never see. The actual general fund budget is $149.7 million. The total budget is $354 million. That includes special revenue funds, including $18 million in food service and federal funds, debt, $143 million in capital projects, and a $15.7 million self-insurance fund facing a $1.3 million deficit.
The tentative tax rate is $5.312 per $1,000 in taxable value, down from 5.349 this year. The decline continues a state-led, 32-year trend of lowering the school tax rate, which has declined in each of those 32 years except for three, during the Great Recession. The state is lowering the tax rate even though property values in Flagler County have fallen for the first time in 14 years, so the decline in the rate compounds the resulting loss in revenue.
A proposed constitutional amendment (Amendment 3) would raise the homestead exemption from $50,000 to $150,000 on Jan. 1, and to $250,000 on Jan. 1, 2028. But the new exemption would not affect the school tax rate, which is currently covered by only a $25,000 exemption.
Florida has one of the lowest per-student funding ratios in the nation and ranks similarly low on academic outcomes, relative to other states in nationally normed testing.
The rate breaks down into three components: the so-called “required local effort,” whose revenue goes to the state and is redistributed to the county based on a funding formula that always sends Flagler less money than it sends the state; a 1.5 mill rate for capital spending, and a 0.748 rate that generates discretionary dollars for the district. The first rate covers the cost of the general fund, including the instructional budget, but not including revenue from the county’s own half-cent sales tax that funds technology and other initiatives.
The capital outlay levy will pay for maintenance of buildings and repairs ($6 million), a new cooling system at Matanzas High School ($5.4 million), $2.5 million in new school buses and other district vehicles, $2.5 million in bus driver salaries and benefits, and other spending. (See the list here.)
The board on Wednesday went through the motions of adopting the proposed budget and tentative tax rate with minimal comment or discussion in a 16-minute meeting. There were no public comments. The board will adopt the budget and tax rate in September. The numbers are not expected to change.
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