A sign on the wall in a convenience store caught my eye the other day. It said the lottery had pumped 18 billion dollars into Florida's schools since 1988. That's a lot of money, I thought. Then I realized it was less than a billion dollars a year. Didn't they promise more when they sold us on the lottery back then? Actually it doesn't matter. It's just another sign of the ebbing support for public schools in Florida. It's easy to see if you look around just a bit. Take the recent rush to lower property taxes. It may trim 7 billion dollars of local tax money for schools. The state legislature says they will replace it. With what? They're going into emergency mode in September to cut a billion dollars or more from this year's budget. Don't bet the ranch that schools would ever see that 7 billion dollars again. And now the Department of Education has plans to cut 720 million dollars from this year's public schools budget. Is there a pattern here? But there's an even larger problem than that. This lost money for schools will have a dramatic impact on growth in Florida. In some parts of the state, it may bring residential construction to a grinding halt. The reason is school concurrency. Until recently it was an obscure part of Florida's growth management laws. Now it is relatively well known as the law that restricts new residential developments in areas where space for new students is scarce. In truth, school concurrency is a complex and highly technical law. But its bottom line is that someone has to build new schools in fast growing areas where schools are already bursting at the seams. Under this law, it doesn't matter who builds the new schools. It could be the school district or it could be the developer. It could be the school district and the developer working together. The problem is, the law doesn't give authority to raise money to build those new schools. And that's where the trouble starts. The cost of building new schools has skyrocketed lately. An elementary school that cost 19 million dollars three or four years ago now costs anywhere from 25 to 30 million. Middle schools and high schools cost much more. Very few developers can front that kind of money for a new school. And with state and local money drying up, few school districts can even borrow that kind of money. School districts have limited options to replace lost state and local revenues. There are some tried and true sources as well as a couple of new ones. But they all have shortcomings, such as: > Impact fees sufficient to build new schools would be a substantial fraction of the cost of a new home. > Local option sales taxes for school construction require voter approval. >Local option real estate transfer fees require approval by the state legislature. >Special taxing districts for school construction require approval by 100% of the property owners in the proposed district. The fact is local property taxes and state funding must do the heavy lifting to build new schools. Without that money, there will be fewer new schools. With fewer new schools, there will be fewer new residential developments. School concurrency goes into effect next year. If voters approve the property tax cut amendment, so will the loss of revenue from property taxes. In the words of the old Chinese curse, we may be headed for interesting times. | 
