LAND O’ LAKES – Superintendent John Legg expressed concern to the school board July 8 about how state and federal decisions will affect the budget for Pasco County Schools.
Legg told the school board that a state budget had been signed since their last meeting.
Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrated signing a $117.4 billion fiscal year budget on June 30 for 2025-26 after making $567 million in line item vetoes.
DeSanctis’ office said the budget “builds on Florida’s record investments in education, providing a historic $15.9 billion in funding for the K-12 public school system.”
His office also touted $1.36 billion to provide salary increases for teachers and other instructional personnel, an increase of about $101.6 million from the previous fiscal year.
Legg described it to the school board as “a tight budget.” The school board will explore how the state budget will affect the district’s general operations on July 22.
“While we may be in better shape than some districts, we still have challenges,” Legg said. “We’re not going to be able to do everything we want. We have some hard decisions that we are going to have to wrestle with here in the next several weeks.”
Legg told the school board, “I do feel like our backs are up against the wall a little bit in terms of timing. We’d rather have these discussions in May rather than in July but our team is working very aggressively on that.”
Pasco County Schools is also concerned about recent news that the U.S. Department of Education is withholding nearly $7 billion in grant funding.
Legg said the district hopes to get clarity or a time frame on the withheld grants in a phone call this week.
“We don’t want to do some draconian cuts or adjustments when the money may just be released in three or four weeks,” Legg said. “So we want to make sure we proceed cautiously but we also don’t want to overextend ourselves as well. We want to be very cautious in how we proceed in that area. That has definitely caused us some consternation.”
Jeff Larsen, president of the United School Employees of Pasco, also shared concerns with the school board July 8 about the federal freeze on education grant funding.
“This horrible decision from the federal government could have disastrous implications if it is not reversed,” Larsen said. “We stand ready to work with the district on the potential impacts of this issue.”
Governor’s Veto List
Here are line items related to Pasco County that were included in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ veto list:
- Empowering Educators: A Resilience Initiative for Hillsborough and Pasco Counties (SF 1678) (HF 2520) – $1,00,000.
- Affordable Homeownership Initiative in Pasco and Hernando (SF 1680) (HF 1216) – $750,000.
- United Way of Pasco County – Fighting Human Trafficking Program (SF 1607) (HF 1251) – $271,350.
- Pasco County Board of County Commissioners (SF 1677) (HF 1268) – $100,000.
- East Pasco Emergency Shelter (SF 1524) (HF 2578) – $25,000.
