SB 2514-E makes two targeted changes to Florida education law. First, it revises the New Worlds Scholarship Accounts program so that unused account funds revert to the state not only when a student is found ineligible for fraud or abuse, but also after one consecutive fiscal year of account inactivity, replacing the bill text’s prior date-based trigger. Second, it creates a new Florida Education Finance Program supplement for school districts that experience declining enrollment, with the supplement calculated by multiplying the percentage decline in unweighted FTE students by the current-year base amount per FTE.
The bill also directs that districts classified as fiscally constrained receive a larger declining-enrollment percentage than non-fiscally constrained districts, giving those districts a more favorable calculation. The measure is set to take effect July 1, 2026, and would operate within the annual appropriations framework for school funding.
The bill would amend sections 1002.411 and 1011.62, Florida Statutes, affecting the administration of New Worlds Scholarship Accounts and the distribution of FEFP school funding. It would tighten the conditions under which scholarship account balances revert to the state and add a new funding adjustment for districts losing students, with special treatment for fiscally constrained districts. The practical effect would be to redirect unused scholarship dollars back to state control sooner in inactive accounts and to increase state education aid for certain districts facing enrollment declines.
The available legislative history shows no recorded committee transcript debate or roll-call votes in the provided materials, so there is no direct evidence of floor or committee sentiment. The bill’s inclusion in the appropriations process and its companion measure’s passage suggest it was part of a broader budget agreement, but SB 2514-E itself ultimately died in conference committee. Overall, the measure appears to have been treated as a technical funding and program-administration bill rather than a highly controversial policy proposal.
The main policy tension appears to be between state oversight of scholarship account balances and the interests of families or providers who may prefer more flexibility before funds revert. Another likely point of discussion is the new declining-enrollment supplement, especially the requirement that fiscally constrained districts receive a higher percentage than other districts, which could raise equity questions among districts with different fiscal conditions. Because the bill died in conference while a companion appropriations measure passed, the unresolved issue was likely not the concept of education funding adjustments itself, but the final terms of the budget implementation.