SPECIAL LEGISLATIVE UPDATE EDITION - May 10, 2005

Good afternoon. Welcome to a special edition of our weekly newsletter, updating you on the Legislature's 60-day session, which ended near midnight last Friday. Many of you have probably already read about it in your local newspaper. But several key issues affecting administrators weren't of enough statewide import to receive coverage. That's one of the reasons you belong to FASA. Included below is information on class size calculations, DROP, reemployment, the health insurance subsidy, psychotropic medications, ethics, and more. Thanks for your participation in FASA.

Mike Eader, Executive Director
Florida Association of School Administrators

For K-12 it was more money, but no vouchers

The 2005 legislative session will probably be remembered, for K-12 anyway, by what didn't pass. 

For example, vouchers for students failing reading didn't make it. In fact, none of the A++ bill made it through the Legislature. But public schools did see about an eight percent increase in funding, the largest in several years. And even though the DELTA grants (the principal professional development and rewards program which stands for Developing Educational Leaders for Tomorrow's Achievers) were in the two A++ bills left hanging in the Legislature, that doesn't mean DELTA is dead, because the Legislature did fund it.

Here is a look at education-related bills we were tracking this year and what happened to them:

FASA issues

While the bills relating to DROP extension and reemployment, increased health insurance subsidy, and increased retirement rates fell by the wayside, enough groundwork was established this session to hopefully get the bills in position for passage next year. The proposed bills generated actuarial studies that will give us the ammunition we need to push the legislation through. Remember that it took a couple of years for us to pass the terminal sick leave bill. Be assured that all these bills will be back next year.