JACKSONVILLE, Fla — Florida's legislative session begins Tuesday and this year is expected to be even tougher due to the pandemic.
One topic to watch is education. Almost 90,000 students are reportedly unaccounted for in Florida, apparently due to the pandemic, which could have an impact how much money school districts get. It's not the only education issue local union leaders are watching.
"They did a hearing in the legislature this past week talking about a lot of the districts ... cutting millions and millions and millions of dollars because the students are gone," said Terrie Brady, president of Duval Teachers United. "First of all, where are the students?"
The Legislature's Office of Economic and Demographic Research finds almost 90,000 fewer students are enrolled in public schools than were accounted for in the budget.
In Duval County there are much fewer students 'missing,' but school system representatives say they're still working on getting the exact number for First Coast News. Brady says the most important thing is finding those students.
"They never came back and they're not in homeschool," she said. "They're not in virtual, they're not in Duval Homeroom, no one knows where they are."
The governor's proposed price tag on education is nearly $23 billion. It includes a $50 million increase for teacher salaries.
The governor's goal from last year to get teacher base pay to $47,500 puts base pay at one of the highest in the country but leaves veteran teachers without large pay increases.
"If you take that 50 million and allocate it among the state for all the new hires for next year, and the second, third, and fourth-year teachers who need to be raised to the $47,500, which is the intent of the governor," said Brady. "Again it leaves no new money for veteran teachers."
Looking at spending per student, U.S. Census data shows Florida has the sixth lowest spending amount in the country. The governor proposes funding per student go up by over $200.
"Under the virtual instruction and Duval Homeroom, we've had to increase our level of instruction, different technology platforms to do instruction, remediation, and also technology," Brady said. "Those are all expensive things. There was no additional revenue for that."
Duval Teachers United is pushing for less student testing and wants performance pay evaluated.
The governor's proposal also includes $10 million more for mental health initiatives and almost $45 million more to award Title 1 schools based on their student performance.