Sarasota County Schools plans to cut 180 instructional staff positions next school year as nearly $45 million in public funding was redirected from the district to private school vouchers. The staff reductions represent roughly 6 percent of instructional positions in the A-rated district, with first-year teachers facing layoffs first according to union protocols. An additional 79 classified staff positions, including custodians, food service workers and IT professionals, are also slated for elimination.
“We’ve had lulls before,” said Rex Ingerick, president of Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association. “We’ve had times where we’ve had some teachers unassigned, but not this level-not this many people.” The cuts come as multiple funding pressures converge on Florida school districts, including the end of federal pandemic relief funds and state policy changes that redirect money to private schools.
Sarasota County Schools received $115 million in special pandemic relief from 2020 through 2022, which funded 182 new positions for literacy, early learning and information technology programs. During the same period, surging property values provided additional local revenue that has since declined as the real estate market cooled. Superintendent Terry Connor told the school board that the surge of funding “gave this perception that we were doing great. The fact is, it was all headed towards an inflection point that we’re faced with today.”
The state’s voucher expansion has significantly impacted district funding, with 4,800 Sarasota County students using vouchers this year. More than 60 percent of those voucher recipients were already homeschooled or enrolled in private schools before receiving public funding. After the state passed a law in 2023 removing income limits from the Family Empowerment Scholarship program, billions of dollars have been redirected from public schools statewide.
Every penny of state funding from the Florida Education Finance Program was diverted into vouchers for private schools in Sarasota County this year, leaving local property taxes as the primary funding source for public schools. Florida’s per-pupil base student allocation increased by an average of 1.4 percent during the last two decades, but adjusted for inflation, that allocation has actually fallen. The 2007 base student allocation of $6,100 exceeded current funding by nearly $800 per student in today’s dollars.
“This is how you bankrupt school districts,” said Holly Bullard, a Sarasota County public school parent and chief strategy officer for Florida Policy Institute. She warned that even wealthier counties like Sarasota “are not protected from things like layoffs or even future school closures if this continues completely unabated.” The funding crisis particularly threatens rural districts that generate less revenue from property taxes.
The district is simultaneously dealing with Florida’s Schools of Hope law, which allows charter school operators to use space in “underutilized” public school facilities while public schools pay associated costs like busing, school lunches and custodial services. Sarasota County is rearranging and reconfiguring some campuses to block charter school co-location under this controversial measure. School board member Liz Barker noted that “at the end of the day, all of it boils down to: someone is looking to turn a profit on education.”
The budget crisis reflects broader challenges facing Florida public education as enrollment has flatlined in Sarasota County, an area with an aging population. The combination of reduced federal support, inflation outpacing state funding increases, and the massive redirection of public money to private schools through expanded voucher programs has created unprecedented financial pressure on districts statewide. The 2026 legislative session will determine whether additional changes to school funding formulas provide relief or further strain public education budgets.