TALLAHASSEE - Senate President Jim King said Thursday he doesn't see how lawmakers can find the money to reduce class sizes as ordered by voters just a year ago.
Gov. Jeb Bush urged lawmakers months ago to ask voters to repeal the provision, but King and House Speaker Johnnie Byrd said this spring they would take a stab at implementing the amendment.
This summer Byrd, R-Plant City, changed his stance to say he wanted to ask voters to limit its scope to the early grades.
Thursday, King, R-Jacksonville, told reporters that "in a perfect world" he wouldn't support taking the issue back to voters, but said he now sees little choice.
"I think we've come to the idea that there's no way in the world we can fund it," he said, adding that a "change of heart in the other chamber and the governor's office" might preserve the status quo of the provision. The governor campaigned passionately against passage of the measure.
The constitutional provision that voters approved in November 2002 requires the state to give school districts enough money to lower class sizes over the next eight years. Absolute caps take effect in 2010: 18 children per classroom for the early grades, 22 children per classroom in the middle grades and 25 students in high school classrooms.
Until then,the state Constitution requires that the average class size be reduced by two students each year.
Byrd wants to replace the provision with a measure that instead caps class sizes through just the third grade. That's also the change proposed by state Sen. Burt Saunders, R-Naples. King said he thought voters next year will probably get a choice: limit class-size reduction to the early grades or raise taxes to pay for the original provision.
"The people have to speak," King said. "Because I don't think the House and the governor are going to move any other way unless they see that it is a popular position with the people."
Lawmakers this year earmarked $468-million of the education budget for districts to reduce class sizes, with another $600-million for capital costs.
The state Department of Education, which doesn't know yet if the state's 67 districts have been able to reduce their average class sizes by two students this year, said another $1 billion will be needed for operational costs for class size.
