Florida will receive $95.8 million in federal aid to reimburse schools for taking in students displaced last year by hurricanes in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy’s office announced in a news release that $46.8 million of the funds will be distributed to school districts; most of the rest will go directly to the state.
The Orange County (Fla.) district, which enrolled about 4,000 displaced students, will receive $12,022,641, the most of any school system. In total, 52 Florida counties will receive funding and 13 counties will receive more than $1 million.
"Tens of thousands of American families from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands relocated to Florida, and thousands of children and youth enrolled in our schools after the school year had started," Murphy says. "This required the State and counties to spend more money than they anticipated spending at the start of the school year. As a result of our effort in Congress, the federal government is now making our state and our school districts whole again.”
Other school districts that are receiving sizable reimbursements:
•Osceola County, about $5 million
•Broward County, $4.4 million
•Miami-Dade County, $4.2 million
•Collier County, $3.1 million
•Palm Beach County $1.8 million
•Polk County $1.7 million
•Volusia County $1.4 million
•Hillsborough County $1.4 million
•Lee County $1.2 million
•Lake County $1.2 million
•Pinellas County, $1.2 million
In addition to the funding for K-12 schools, Murphy's efforts have resulted in $75 million in funding for colleges and universities around the nation that enrolled students forced to relocate because of hurricanes.
