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Twelve Florida School districts that defied the state’s ban on mask mandates are now scheduled to lose two hundred million dollars in the budget as a consequence to their action. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the plan is to spread the money around the other fifty-five districts that followed the Governor’s executive order.

The twelve districts that defied a ban on mask mandates now collectively face a loss of two hundred million dollars.

“They didn’t defy the mask ban, they broke the law” says State Representative Randy Fine. “They acted in an illegal way and they engaged in the second largest state sponsored act of child abuse in the history of Florida.”

But now the powerful appropriations chair says the districts must face the consequences of their actions.

To try and sweeten the pot and get enough votes to pass this plan, the House version would take the two hundred million and give it to the fifty-fife school districts that didn’t buck the state says House K-12 Appropriations Chair Rep. Randy Fine (R-Brevard).

“And we have to send the message that when you follow the law, you are rewarded. When you do not follow the law, you are not.”

Leon Superintendent Rocky Hanna tells us his constituents wanted masks worn in schools despite the state saying no.

“Would you do all of that again?” We asked Hanna. 

“Absolutely. Absolutely, I would” he told us. “And if we need to go to war with him, with representative Fine and this issue with salaries, we’ll just lawyer up and have at it.”

Democrat leader Evan Jenne thinks it would be foolish for any GOP members from the 12 counties to agree to moving the money.

“How any legislature can turn around and tell his community that I am here for you, ,or she turns around and says I’m here for your kids  don’t tell me that when you’ve just yoked millions of dollars away from their education” says Jenne, who represents Broward, one of the counties facing a loss of millions.

The plan gets its first test on Wednesday when the proposed budget goes before the full appropriations committee.

The twelve districts account for half of the public school enrollment in the state. The 200 million is based on the number of administrators in a county making more than one hundred thousand dollars a year.