Palm Beach County schools to vote on $54 million charter school settlement
As a dispute over referendum funding for charter schools heats up in Broward County, the Palm Beach County School Board may end its own battle Wednesday by paying 45 charter schools a combined $54.9 million.
The expected payout is the result of a 2023 legal victory for charter schools that also has impacted Broward, which is the same appellate judicial district as Palm Beach County.
The issue in Palm Beach County relates to a tax of $100 per $100,000 in assessed property, which voters passed in a referendum in 2018. The money was used for teacher salary increases, safety and security and the funding of art and music teachers for four years. The law at the time didn’t explicitly say charter schools must be included, and Palm Beach County restricted the money to its district-run schools only.
In 2019, two charter schools, Academy for Positive Learning and Palm Beach Maritime Academy, and two parents filed a lawsuit challenging the district’s decision. After an initial win for the school district in trial court, the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the charter schools in 2021, saying the district needed to start sharing. The decision was upheld after the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case in September 2021.
After that time, the district agreed to include all charter schools in referendum payments for the next two years, which was estimated to be about $45 million. But still unanswered was whether the district must reimburse charter schools for the first two years where they hadn’t been paid.
The court ruled in March 2023 that Palm Beach County must make retroactive payments, and the district started making retroactive payments.
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“Based on the ruling of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, the School Board distributed payments reflecting the amount of the retroactive 2018 referendum revenues as required by the courts to every charter school in Palm Beach County and further sent funding letters regarding the interest payments owed on the 2018 referendum revenues,” the School Board agenda item states.
“The charter schools noted various disputes related to these interest payments. The Settlement Agreements included in this Board item are representative of the parties’ desire to resolve all disputes, including, without limitation, all claims raised or that could be raised in connection with the 2018 referendum principal payments or funding letters,” the item states.
Broward is still in the middle of a dispute over funding from its own 2018 referendum, and the state Board of Education found the district out of compliance with state law at a March 27 meeting. The board cited the Palm Beach County court rulings in its findings.
Broward shared some money with charter schools, about $4.6 million of $455 million collected over four years. But about 30 charter schools sued in October, seeking a proportional share of referendum money. The state Board of Education has become involved in the matter and says Broward owes about $80 million.
Broward’s tax, at $50 per $100,000 in assessed property, was half the size of Palm Beach’s at the time. The state law was changed in 2019 to explicitly require school districts to share with charter schools, and Broward and Palm Beach complied when they asked voters to approve new referendums in 2022.
The issue in Broward has angered some board members. Board member Daniel Foganholi has accused Interim General Counsel Marylin Batista of mishandling the matter and is asking the School Board to fire her April 16.
