![\"Teacher](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MIA_114backtoschool13NEWPPP.JPG\" "\\"Teacher")
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Teacher Amanda Puigcerver plays with students in her Kindergarten classroom, at Venetian Parc Academy, on the first day of school for Miami-Dade Public Schools, on Thursday, Aug 13, 2026.<\/p>\n
Pedro Portal<\/p>\n
pportal@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
For the first time ever, Florida\u2019s school finance program is set to send more state taxpayer money to private education than it does to public schools in Miami-Dade County.<\/p>\n
The state covers about 25 percent of Miami-Dade\u2019s spending on students, and this year that state share is $1.5 billion – with $766 million going to vouchers and $737 million going to public and charter students, according to Department of Education budget documents.<\/a><\/p>\n The voucher money is estimated to go to about 82,470 students, and the public school share will be divided among the projected 303,506 students in traditional public and charter schools. That\u2019s about $8,000 per voucher student, and less than $3,000 per public school student.<\/p>\n That imbalance is the result of a dramatic change in Florida\u2019s education landscape: A voucher program that was once limited to certain students has exploded since becoming available to virtually all Florida families in 2023, while enrollment in Miami-Dade\u2019s traditional public schools has fallen.<\/p>\n And Miami-Dade is now providing a glimpse of a problem that has already surfaced in Monroe County: As vouchers consume a growing share of the state\u2019s education budget, the decades-old funding formulas are beginning to struggle to pay for both private and public school students. The situation could ultimately force changes to how education money \u201cfollows the student\u201d \u2014 with some advocates pushing to separate the funding into its own silo or make local school districts pick up part of the bill for voucher funding.<\/p>\n The average school district gets slightly more from local taxes than state taxes, but in certain high property value communities like Miami-Dade and Monroe County, local property taxes make up the vast majority. As vouchers skyrocket, they absorb more state money than public schools in some cases.<\/p>\n Sue Woltanski, a school board member in Monroe County, saw first-hand how vouchers can consume a district\u2019s state funding.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was sold to us that [vouchers] would be no cost because this would just be a child already funded in the formula moving over to the other place, but if a kid from the public school moves over to [take a private school voucher], there won\u2019t be money for them over there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But lawmakers know there\u2019s an issue with how the state\u2019s funding formula works as-is.<\/p>\n State Representative Alex Rizo, R-Hialeah \u2014 a former charter school principal and public school administrator who sits on two education committees in Tallahassee \u2013 says the state\u2019s education finance program is due for a \u201crevamp.\u201d<\/p>\n The program was created in the early 1970s. It\u2019s regularly tweaked, but major changes to it like the universal voucher are rare.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an old formula, and there\u2019s been a lot that\u2019s happened since its inception,\u201d Rizo said.<\/p>\n The math doesn\u2019t math<\/p>\n Though Miami-Dade is the state\u2019s first major urban county to cross this threshold, it\u2019s very familiar territory for some smaller, wealthy counties where funding formulas generally lean heavier on local taxes, not state funds.<\/p>\n In Monroe County, Woltanski said funding vouchers in her Florida Keys community has caused some budget headaches.<\/p>\n According to budget documents from the Department of Education during the 2025-26 school year, five school districts \u2013 Monroe along with Collier, Martin, Sarasota<\/a> and Walton \u2013 saw state-required voucher funding surpass<\/a> the allocated state aid, so on paper it looked like these districts owed the state money in order to pay for the private school vouchers claimed in their counties.<\/p>\n Monroe didn\u2019t necessarily have that many students using vouchers \u2013 851 compared to 8,249 in traditional and charter schools \u2013 but the math of the formula could not withstand even that number.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though our voucher numbers hadn\u2019t gone up, the public school students had gone down, so there wasn\u2019t enough money to pay for all the students who get the vouchers,\u201d Woltanski recalled.<\/p>\n It\u2019s partially because the formula for state and local contributions are calculated separately from the vouchers, and are based on property values in each county. The higher the property values, generally speaking, the more a district relies on local taxes as opposed to state taxes. Miami, for example, gets $2.2 billion in local taxes for education, which makes up about 75 percent of its allocation. The imbalance can cause vouchers to absorb all the state funds for public schools in districts that get fewer state dollars.<\/p>\n The state legislature has had to make some changes, like lowering the amount of funding that can come from local revenue<\/a> so the state is on the hook for more funds and adding budget language<\/a> to allow the state to send extra money to districts where state funds get absorbed by vouchers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt made us look like we owed the state almost a million dollars because of kids going on vouchers\u2026 They told us not to worry about it, and they did, ultimately, give us the money, which we appreciate,\u201d Woltanski recalled.<\/p>\n Across the political spectrum, Florida policymakers and observers think the state\u2019s funding formula should change given the issue districts like Monroe have faced as well as increased political pressures around vouchers.<\/p>\n Woltanski suggests detaching the voucher from the state funding formula entirely. As it stands, she said the arrangement threatens to destabilize both the districts themselves and the funding stream for vouchers.<\/p>\n \u201cWouldn\u2019t vouchers be better protected in a separate silo where they were guaranteed the money the state was giving them, and it wasn\u2019t determined on what the population of their school district was?\u201d<\/p>\n The state\u2019s fix to what occurred last school year in Monroe County \u2013 just send more money \u2013 isn\u2019t a long-term solution, she added.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the state decides to fix it by just providing more and more state funding, well then they\u2019re just taking away more and more from what was promised of the public schools.\u201d Woltanski said.<\/p>\n Danny Aqua, whose organization Teach Florida advocates for private and Jewish schools in Florida<\/a>, said the program \u201ccould change and it should change.\u201d<\/p>\n But he believes voucher funding should be calculated the same way as public schools\u2019 per pupil average, which was $11,531 as of the 2024-25 \u2014 a figure that includes all state, local and federal funding.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that funding every student with the same sources would be beneficial, and I think it would make it even more predictable for the district and for the scholarship program,\u201d Aqua said.<\/p>\n Integrating private school teachers into the district\u2019s referendum \u2013 which is a ballot mechanism Miami-Dade has used in 2018, 2022 and this year to increase local tax dollars to primarily fund teacher salaries and school safety \u2013 would also help, Aqua argued. He said it would benefit private schools and would shrink the gap between what private schools get from the government per-student and what entirely government-funded public schools get per-student.<\/p>\n![\"Students](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MIA_105backtoschool13NEWPPP.JPG\" "\\"MIA_105backtoschool13NEWPPP.JPG\\"")
Students walk along the hallway as they arrive to Miami Springs Preparatory Academy 6-12, on the first day of school for Miami-Dade Public Schools, on Thursday, Aug 13, 2026. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com Shifting the burden to the counties?<\/p>\n