Politics
Dems decry charter school conversion bill in last House committee
A bill that would make it easier for public schools to be converted into charter schools is one vote from passing in the House after clearing its final committee hurdle.
Members of the House Education and Employment Committee voted 11-4 for an amended version of HB 123, which would change the standard by which municipalities can turn over public school property to private education companies.
The bill, sponsored by Pensacola Republican Rep. Alex Andrade, would exclude School Boards, teachers and school administrators from voting on the matter. Rather, the decision would fall solely to parents of a given school, provided their children were enrolled there for at least two years. Approval would require 50% support.
The charter school would have to be a “job engine,” meaning it would train students to fill local workforce needs and attract related businesses to the area. Municipalities could also apply to convert a public school within their jurisdiction into a job engine charter if the public school earned a grade below an “A” from the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) for five consecutive years.
The Florida Citizens Alliance, Foundation for Florida’s Future and Americans for Prosperity signaled support for HB 123, which Andrade amended to remove proposed limitations on land banking by school districts.
Andrade said in the bill’s prior committee stop that his proposal shifts decisions about a school’s future from its employees and administrators to those he considered its most important stakeholders. “Who cares more about that child than that child’s parents?” he said.
More than 40 people, including representatives from the Florida AFL-CIO and State Innovation Exchange, attended Tuesday’s committee meeting to oppose the measure.
Jude Bruno of the Florida PTA said the bill creates a “troubling framework” that could doubly tax residents while relying on a state-set grading model that is subject to the potentially capricious whims of FDOE policymakers handpicked by the Governor.
“A school’s fate could rest on shifting metrics, not actual student success,” she said, adding that if passed, HB 123 would also “hand over power” to charter schools “without any accountability metrics that school districts and our parents fight for.”
The bill, as currently written, would also give people with a short-term interest in a school — parents whose kids will eventually graduate — the ability to impose long-term changes on it, lobbyist Nancy Lawther noted.
“This is a permanent solution to a potential temporary situation for those particular parents,” said Lawther, who serves as Executive Director of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party. “At the very least, (there should be) a referendum of the residents of the municipality, whose property values would be affected by the conversion.”
Through a series of questions and answers with Andrade, Gainesville Democratic Rep. Yvonne Hinson clarified that Florida law today enables municipalities to seek the development of new charter schools within their bounds. She described HB 123 as the latest in a yearslong effort to privatize public education resources.
“What we’re watching in real time is a full-throttled takeover of our public schools,” she said. “Every year, it gets deeper and deeper, and here we are now.”
Hinson and fellow Democratic Reps. Wallace Aristide of Miami, Tae Edmonds of West Palm Beach and Rita Harris of Orlando voted “no” on the bill.
Its upper-chamber companion (SB 140) by Pensacola Republican Sen. Don Gaetz awaits a hearing before the last of three committees to which it was referred.
Last Call – A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida politics.
First Shot
A new media report appears to confirm that the $10 million Hope Florida received as part of a settlement with Centene should have covered money owed to taxpayers, despite Gov. Ron DeSantis’s denial.
DeSantis and his team have said that a $10 million donation to Hope Florida was extra cash, a “cherry on top,” or a “sweetener” for the deal.
The Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald obtained a copy of a draft agreement between the state and Centene after Florida’s largest Medicaid contractor overcharged taxpayers by $67 million for medications.
“That’s the exact amount DeSantis officials settled on with Centene last year. But instead of returning all $67 million to state and federal coffers, they sent $10 million of it to the Hope Florida Foundation,” the story published Tuesday said.
“The money was then sent to two nonprofit organizations that aren’t required to report how they spend their funds. Those ‘dark money’ groups later gave $8.5 million to a political committee overseen by DeSantis’ chief of staff in a series of transactions that some Republican lawmakers believe were illegal.”
Rep. Alex Andrade, a Republican who chairs the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee, is planning to question Hope Florida officials and others this week.
Read more on Florida Politics.
Evening Reads
—“As controversies pile up, Donald Trump allies increasingly turn on one another” via Chris Megerian and Zeke Miller of The Associated Press
—”An immigrant held in U.S. custody ‘has simply disappeared’” via Miriam Jordan of The New York Times
—”Defending democracy is easier when you listen to voters” via Nate Silver of the Silver Bulletin
—”Under Pete Hegseth, chaos prevails at the Pentagon” via Greg Jaffe and Helene Cooper of The New York Times
—”Why Florida’s public universities are collaborating with ICE” via Devan Schwartz and Sean Rameswaram of Vox
—”Amid AHCA scandal, Medicaid accountability bill heads to Senate floor” via Christine Sexton of the Florida Phoenix
—“Why Florida’s condo owners are so desperate to sell” via Deborah Acosta of The Wall Street Journal
—“Are Q-Pilled family members lost for good?” via Fortesa Latifi of Rolling Stone
—”Gov. Ron DeSantis leaves top offices vacant for weeks with no replacements in sight” via Gray Rohrer of the USA Today Network-Florida
—”Don Gaetz says Joel Rudman has withdrawn bid for Pensacola State College Board” via A.G. Gancarski of Florida Politics
Quote of the Day
“(Ron DeSantis) is either misinformed by his shrinking circle, or he’s lying.”
— Rep. Alex Andrade, on DeSantis’ statements on the Centene-Hope Florida scandal.
Put it on the Tab
Look to your left, then look to your right. If you see one of these people at your happy hour haunt, flag down the bartender and put one of these on your tab. Recipes included, just in case the Cocktail Codex fell into the well.
Raise a Burning Rubber to the House Commerce Committee for greenlighting a bill that would bump Florida’s speed limit up a notch.
The Commerce Committee also gets a round of Dragnets for sending a bill that would protect minors from online predators to the chamber floor.
It’s not much, but former Rep. Joel Rudman gets an Exit Strategy for withdrawing his nom and not wasting the Senate Ethics & Elections Committee’s time in the waning days of Session.
Breakthrough Insights
Tune In
Seminoles playing again after shooting
For the first time since the mass shooting that left two dead and six injured at the FSU Student Union, Florida State will play a sporting event as the Seminoles host Stetson tonight (6 p.m. ET, ACC Network X).
Florida State (29-7, 11-4 ACC) leads the Atlantic Coast Conference and is ranked fourth in the D1baseball.com poll this week. FSU pitcher Joey Volini was named the national pitcher of the month for March after winning all five decisions in the month and posting an ERA of 1.09 while striking out 50 batters over 33 innings of work.
Seminoles slugger Alex Lodise was named the midseason national player of the year by D1Baseball. The junior from St. Augustine leads the team with a .434 batting average and has slammed 13 home runs with a team-high 47 runs batted in.
Stetson (27-14, 16-2 ASUN) has already clinched a berth in the ASUN conference tournament.
The meeting is scheduled to be the 98th matchup between the two programs, with FSU holding a 70-27 lead in the alltime series, including winning 19 of the last 20 at Dick Howser Stadium in Tallahassee.
Last year, FSU beat the Hatters 7-2 in the NCAA Regionals on the strength of home runs in the first two innings. Florida State went on to win the regional and later the Super Regional, advancing to the College World Series.
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Last Call is published by Peter Schorsch, assembled and edited by Phil Ammann and Drew Wilson, with contributions from the staff of Florida Politics.
As evidenced in today’s House Commerce Committee and last week’s House Judiciary Committee hearings, while some members of Florida’s Legislature have good intentions in proposing changes to current insurance regulations, certain proposals may lead to adverse consequences for both the marketplace and consumers.
Case in point is PCS HB 947 and prevailing party attorney fees. Passage of this bill and the award of prevailing party attorney fees will lead to increased litigation and destabilize Florida’s insurance marketplace. In particular, passage of HB 947 will have a chilling effect on Florida’s insurance market AND reinsurance market, which will see this as a precedent that makes Florida’s process automatically adversarial.
Simply put, the prevailing party standard will, at this time, create uncertainty in the marketplace, which will ultimately lead to increased premiums and put the Florida property market recovery at risk.
Similarly, PCS for CS/HB 643 seeks changes that are not needed. As a former Florida Insurance Commissioner, I continue to have serious concern with certain provisions in this proposed legislation. While determining “fair and reasonable” fees is undoubtedly a worthy endeavor, passing vague legislation BEFORE gathering industry, staff, and OIR input and direction on how to gauge what is “fair and reasonable” is less than optimal. Changes of this magnitude need to be made with thoughtful input from stakeholders to implement these reforms.
Again, I believe this legislation would also have a devastating impact on the appetite of capital investment in Florida’s property insurance market — an unnecessary impediment at a time when the industry is finally showing early signs of recovery.
Florida has seen a recent infusion of capital, the formation of new companies, stabilization in reinsurance pricing, and a significant reduction in the number of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation policies. These are positive indicators that the reforms passed over the last several years are beginning to bear fruit. But capital markets are watching Florida closely and what they are looking for is certainty and consistency. Several of the provisions in these proposed bills, if enacted, would signal to investors, reinsurers, and startups that Florida is becoming a more hostile environment for capital deployment.
As a former Insurance Commissioner of the state of Florida with 27 years in public service through the Department of Insurance and the Office of Insurance Regulation, I have experienced a lot of tumult in the property insurance market, through some good times and bad.
Between my current private sector experience and my long history of public sector leadership, I have unique insights and perspective with regard to the sensitivities of the investor market to the changes that are happening in Florida.
I urge Florida’s leaders to recognize that now is not the time to undo the reforms made in 2022 and 2023 – from systemic changes to enhancing the regulatory framework — including the ability of the Office of Insurance Regulation to hold insurance companies “feet to the fire” when necessary – let these reforms work.
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Kevin M. McCarty served as Florida Insurance Commissioner from 2003 to 2016; he is currently a manager for Celtic Global.
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