By Del Stover
3/18/03 -- Four months after Florida voters approved strict limits on class sizes, state policymakers now are struggling to keep the controversial measure from breaking the back of local and state budgets.
On March 4, Gov. Jeb Bush told the state legislature that voters should be asked to reverse their earlier decision. He said the class-size measure, along with voter approval of a high-speed train system for the state, "are making funding decisions extremely painful."
While state policymakers wrestle with how to fund the class-size initiative in the face of a $2 billion state budget deficit, local school officials say they are seeking ways to pay for the teachers and classrooms needed if the state mandate stays in place.
In Hillsborough County, for example, officials estimate they'll need 3,000 new teachers and 3,000 new classrooms to reduce class sizes. By the end of the decade, the cost could reach $650 million.
School officials in Duval County say they'll need at least 150 additional teachers next year, and one estimate suggests that the budget impact next year will approach $137 million.
Such estimates are making clear the real price tag of Amendment 9, approved by 52 percent of voters last November. The law mandates a cap in class sizes of 18 students for kindergarten through grade 3, 22 students in grades 4-8, and 25 students in high school classes. The new class-size goals must be met by 2010.
With class sizes averaging as high as 30 students in some districts, and student enrollment still rising steadily, the cost of the class-size reduction initiative has been estimated at anywhere between $12 billion and $28 billion statewide.
Some political observers question whether the state can afford even the lower estimates. State revenues are down, and the governor and influential Republicans say they will not support new taxes.
The financial conflict between shrinking class sizes and school budgets is not limited to Florida.
Lawmakers in California and Nevada are considering whether to ease state rules regarding student-teacher ratios. Meanwhile, Oklahoma has issued exemptions to several school districts that could not balance their budgets without increasing class sizes.
Gov. Bush has proposed spending $628 million for class-size reduction next year. But Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association, says the money would be taken from other education programs. The result is that public schools really are being asked to shoulder the cost of the mandate without adequate state support.
"We say $628 million is enough for the first year, but not if you take it out of our regular budget," Blanton says. "That's all blue smoke and mirrors. So, right now, we're $800 million to $850 million short of what's needed to implement" class-size reductions.
Officials in Hillsborough County estimate the governor's plan will provide $44 million for class-size reduction. But district spokesperson Mark Hart says that allocation isn't adequate.
"When you look at our growth in student enrollment and increased operating costs, we're projecting under the governor's plan a $32 million budget shortfall," he says. "And that doesn't include a modest raise for our employees."
State officials haven't yet decided whether to push for a repeal. Although that proposal has some support, some lawmakers oppose any effort to repeal the measure.
"It's non-negotiable," state Sen. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the Orlando Sentinel earlier this month. "We are going to implement class sizes. That's what the people asked us to do."
Gov. Bush also has proposed easing the class-size mandate by allowing more students to transfer to charter schools that are exempt from the class limits. He also has proposed providing parents of students at crowded schools with vouchers for private schools.
Other options under consideration would permit schools to add a second teacher to over-crowded classrooms, simplify the teacher certification process, sell school construction bonds, and repeal a law requiring the disposal of 20-year-old portable classrooms.
Some of these proposals have prompted partisan sniping, with critics complaining the governor is using the class-size issue to promote a voucher program. Others have called on Gov. Bush to repeal tax deductions granted to special interest groups.
For now, local school officials say they are proceeding under the assumption that the class-size restrictions are the law of the land.
Their attention now is focused on how to find the nearly 20,000 new teachers that will be needed to meet the state mandate -- including as many as 7,000 next year.
Hillsborough County school officials are looking at the potential of an aggressive recruitment campaign to woo teachers from other states and convince professionals in other fields to switch to teaching.
District officials also are looking to cut costs by requiring small schools to share assistant principals and specialists.
Another question is where new teachers will work. Building new classrooms could cost upwards of half a billion dollars just in Hillsborough County.
Many districts will be able to defer that cost -- at least for a year. A new report to the state legislature finds that additional funding for school construction in recent years has eased classroom overcrowding.
But local schools can cut only so much, Blanton says. "We are going to be required to implement it," he says. "But unless somebody comes up with additional dollars, it will be virtually impossible to implement."