Brevard schools could lose $29M from budget next year

Article from Florida Today

Brevard Public Schools is estimating that it could lose as much as $29 million next school year, or about 6 percent of its operating budget, according to initial predictions from the Department of Education.

This will be the fourth consecutive year of budget cuts to education. The school district's operating budget this year was about $533 million.

Judy Preston, associate superintendent for financial services, said the DOE hasn't released any documents that would give a more exact estimate of the projected loss. "It's been an unusually quiet year," she said. "When the dust settles from the legislative session, maybe we'll have a better picture."

Last year wasn't quite so calm. Around this time last year, the district was projecting a loss of about $80 million from its operating budget, and thousands of concerned residents gathered at the King Center to plead with the county's legislative delegation to protect education funding.

The crisis was abated because of about $50 million in federal stimulus funding, as well as $9 million in a special property tax increase approved by the Brevard County School Board. Altogether, the district lost $33 million. While this year's situation doesn't seem quite as dire, the funding loss still could lead to job or program cuts.

Superintendent Brian Binggeli told the school board last week that senior staff members have carefully examined each department's budget to take a closer look at where cuts could be made. District officials also are watching to see if legislators will make changes to the class-size amendment. If no changes are made, schools next year must measure class size by individual classes rather than taking a school wide average, according to the amendment approved by voters in 2002.

Pre-kindergarten through third-grade classrooms should have no more than 18 students each and fourth- through eighth-grade classrooms should not exceed 22 students, according to the Florida law. School officials estimate that they would need to hire between 200 and 600 teachers and spend at least $10.8 million to meet the statute. They would be hiring teachers while, for the fifth consecutive year, simultaneously losing students because of the statewide enrollment decline.

Since October 2008, the district has lost 1,000 students.