Does Florida short change its students? Where does the education funding come from and where does it go? Answers to such questions require some ‘tax literacy’. Florida is one of seven states with no income tax. As a percentage of personal income, Florida has the fourth lowest tax rate in the country. Corporate taxes currently are 2.9% of Florida’s revenue. Yet, Florida is not a poor state; some areas are quite wealthy.Now there is a legislative proposal to eliminate property taxes. What are the implications of such an idea? Clearly, sales taxes would have to go up. The question prompted me to put together Florida’s funding stream for education. I asked some questions:
- How much of its budget does Florida allocate for education?
- How does Florida’s education funding compare to other states?
- How much of the education budget is funded from states sales tax, the lottery, local property taxes and the federal government?
- How much is diverted from the education budget by corporate tax rebates for private school scholarships?
- How much money is diverted from school districts to charter schools?
The answers to these questions explain a lot. We can understand the power of the federal purse when we oppose federal mandates on testing and accountability programs. We can understand public school districts’ concerns about the attempts to privatize the educational system. We can evaluate the impact of proposals to reduce taxes. Most of all, we can examine our state’s priorities.
