ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Orange County School District will learn its budget by the end of September, according to a School Board Member.
District 6 Board Member Stephanie Vanos said the board will hold a budget meeting at the end of July and another in late September, during which they will learn how much money the district will have to run its 214 public schools.
The budget is expected to be in the range of $7.5 billion, based on last year’s budget numbers.
The district lost nearly 9,000 students over the past three years, and with it about $17 million in state funding. Vanos said there are no plans to consolidate schools.
“We do not plan to close any schools this year,” she said. “We had seven schools that we had to consolidate in the past year. That was really driven by low enrollment numbers. ”
The declining birth rate was one of the reasons for the drop in enrollment. Vanos points to the school voucher program, which allows parents to move their kids from public to private school, as the main reason for the decline.
“The taxpayer-funded voucher program continues to siphon off a large amount of money,” Vanos said. “This is education money that could be going to our public schools. In the last seven years, the taxpayer-funded voucher has increased in Orange County by 1100%.”
A referendum that would significantly lower the homestead exemption for 60 percent of Floridians will be on the November ballot.
If it passes, it could affect public safety, such as police and sheriff’s departments. That could force school districts to pay more for school resource officers.
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