Charter School Funding To Come Under Review

School Board member Shirley Brown said it might be time for the school district to revisit how it shares referendum and capital dollars with Sarasota County charter schools. 

At Tuesday's monthly work session, Brown said many new charter schools have financial advantages to public schools, such as not having to meet the Florida class-size amendment. Coupled with the recession, Brown said the district needs to keep its options open and have policies that allow it to be financially flexible. 

"Charter schools will now be allowed to expand and expand different grades if they want to without getting approval from us," Brown said. 

Brown said the district could see an influx of other charter schools coming to Sarasota County because of the way the district shares funds. She suggested to the board on Tuesday to revisit those sharing policies and compare what other county's are doing with charter school funding. 

"Charter schools in other counties can come into Sarasota County basically at their will," she added. "I’m thinking given those things, we might want to give ourselves some protection. I think we are a target for charter schools because we do share revenue."

Last year, Sarasota charter schools received $4.5 million referendum dollars from the district. They also received $2.48 million in capital dollars. The revenue sharing is just a board practice and is not an ordinance.

She suggested to the board that the district could consider limiting revenue sharing for future charter schools and possibly grandfather in existing schools. 

School district attorney Art Hardy said the district is within its legal right to not share any of the money or select which charter schools do. 

For comparison, Hardy told the board members that they have one of the most charter-friendly revenue sharing policies in the state. Indian River County, he says, shares a portion of its .25 referendum and shares no operating funds. St. Lucie County shares some of its referendum dollars as well. 

Hardy said "most of the big ones" such as Polk, Lee, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee, Broward, Collier and Seminole Counties do not share any funds with their charter schools. 

The board unanimously agreed to publicly for further discuss the charter school funding at the August work session. 

"I think it's something we definitely have to consider because we have insufficient funding and are constantly cutting the budget," board member Caroline Zucker said. "This has more to do with the needs of the district, rather than the charters."

Board member Jane Goodwin said having a further discussion makes sense because when it comes to either cutting jobs or cutting charter school funding, "It just doesn't make sense to me."