TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — School districts that ignored Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ order banning mask mandates will face a $200 million penalty under a budget bill passed by the Florida House.
The funding stripped from those districts would be spread among the state’s other districts. Republican Rep. Randy Fine angrily defended the proposal to punish the 12 districts, saying that they broke the law.
"Following the law is not optional. ... These school districts broke the law,” Fine said, according to The Associated Press. "And they were broken for nothing."
Democrats who opposed the bill Wednesday cited the idea of punishing districts as one of the reasons they voted no. The $105 billion budget passed on a 102-14 vote.
"I don’t think we should use our budget to bully municipalities or school boards, or anybody," said Democratic Rep. Dotie Joseph, whose district is in Miami-Dade County, which has the largest school district in the state and is one of the 12 the House wants to punish, the AP reported.
Districts in the Tampa Bay area include Hillsborough and Sarasota counties, and all no longer have any mask mandates in effect.
Some Democrats supported the bill but expressed hope that the punishment provision will be taken out when the House and Senate negotiate differences in their spending proposals.
Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis was open to the idea of allowing parents to sue districts if their children were negatively affected.
"My view on that is rather than take money that may penalize a teacher or a student because of the actions of some union-controlled school board member — my view would be, let's not do that," DeSantis said during a news conference Friday. "But what you could do is say any parent whose kid was illegally forced masked this year, in Florida, at any of those districts, they should have the right to sue if their kids have any negative effects of it."
The governor said taking this route would create a balance between penalizing politicians and not depriving kids in schools of the opportunity to participate in certain programs.
"They flouted the law and they should be liable for the consequences of their actions," DeSantis added.
The Senate now is tasked with considering the budget bill.
10 Tampa Bay's Andrew Krietz contributed to this report.