A Florida appeals court has rejected an attempt by charter schools in Palm Beach County to gain access to funds allocated to the county’s traditional public schools for teachers' salaries and other school expenses.
The Palm Beach Post reports that a panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled in a 2-1 vote that the county school board did not violate state law by denying charter schools a share of the $200 million generated each year by a property tax approved by voters in 2018.
The ruling upholds a decision last year by a state circuit judge. The chairman of one of three charters that brought the lawsuit says he expects the schools will appeal the case to the state Supreme Court.
“I think we’re ready to go all the way to the end and let the Supreme Court figure it out,” said Andy Binns, chairman of Palm Beach Maritime Academy’s board of directors.
School district leaders call the ruling “a decisive win for the taxpayers of Palm Beach County.”
Charter schools and traditional public schools generally receive the same amount of money per student from state and local taxes.
But until last year, state law did not explicitly say whether charters are entitled to a portion of special school taxes approved by county voters, and the 2018 referendum authorizing the new tax specifically excluded the county’s 51 charters.
In January, two charters ― Palm Beach Maritime Academy in Lantana and the Academy for Positive Learning in Lake Worth ― sued for a share. A third charter, G-Star School of the Arts in Palm Springs, joined the legal battle two months later.
The case centered on whether a state law requiring that charter school students be funded “the same as students enrolled in other public schools in the school district” applies to money from special, voter-approved taxes.
In a majority opinion written by Judge Robert Gross, the appellate panel concluded that the wording in question “refers to the method of calculating funding, not the funding source or amount.”
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Jonathan Gerber argued that the school board’s refusal to share with charters violated state law and showed “disregard of the plain meaning of ‘the same as.’”
Charters say that being denied a share of the money has put them at a competitive disadvantage in finding and retaining qualified teachers.
The district is using half of the money from the four-year tax to boost teachers’ salaries by thousands of dollars. District teachers with at least a decade of experience, for instance, received pay hikes of $10,000 this year.
