A management firm is poised to profit off plan to divert local property taxes to charter schools

Records show that Academica, a major for-profit manager of charter schools, has been working on legislation that would force county school districts to give more money to charters.

Photo credit: Lauren Manning

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In late February, toward the end of this year’s regular legislative session, Republican leaders in the state Senate introduced a measure to make public school districts across Florida give a bigger share of local property taxes to privately run charter schools.

The idea seemed to catch some senators by surprise when it was presented to the Senate Finance & Tax Committee as part of a larger package of proposed tax cuts and changes. The charter school provision prompted an extended round of sometimes-confused questioning during the hearing; Sen. Ed Hooper, a Republican from Clearwater who is a part of the Senate GOP leadership team, confessed that even he did not fully understand it.

But there was someone who knew about the property tax plan in advance: Academica Corp., the charter school management giant that stands to profit from the change.

Records obtained by Seeking Rents show that the sponsor the Senate tax package shared a draft of the charter school language with a lobbyist for Academica the week before it was filed for the rest of the public to see. An aide to Sen. Bryan Avila (R-Miami Springs) emailed the still-secret tax-sharing scheme to Academica lobbyist Andreina Figueroa with a one-word subject line: “Review.”

An aide to Sen. Bryan Avila emailed a draft of the charter school tax legislation to an Academica lobbyist four days before the it was filed and made public.

Neither Avila nor representatives for Academica responded to emailed questions — including whether Academica first proposed the tax-diversion plan for charter schools, which are schools run by private entities but funded with public education dollars.

At issue is an incremental property tax that voters in any Florida county can choose to impose on themselves in order to raise money for their public schools. The local tax increase, which must be approved through a countywide referendum, is sometimes known as the “additional millage.”

School districts are already required to share revenue raised from the additional millage with any charter school that a district itself has approved.

But the Senate proposal would force school districts to give money even to charter schools authorized by other agencies — schools that operate without any oversight from the local district.

An excerpt from the Florida Senate’s proposed tax package.

It’s the latest step in a years-long campaign by the charter school industry to sidestep county school districts. School districts are, after all, run by locally elected school boards. And voters are sometimes hostile to the privatization of their public schools.

Five years ago, the industry persuaded Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature to give the power to sponsor new charter schools to state colleges and universities — where the governing boards are appointed by politicians in Tallahassee rather than elected by voters in the local community.

That 2021 law is just now beginning to bear fruit for the industry. In fact, the Senate’s proposal to make school districts share local tax money with state-imposed charters surfaced in the Capitol just days after the board of trustees at Miami Dade College signed off on six new charter schools around Miami.

All six applications were submitted by Academica, according to The Reporter, the student newspaper at Miami Dade College.

Academica, which bills itself as “arguably the largest and most successful” charter school operator in the country, has long been an influential special interest in Tallahassee when it comes to education policy.

The Miami-based company has cultivated close personal and financial ties with key policymakers over the years — including Manny Diaz, the former Republican state legislator who later became Ron DeSantis’ education commissioner and is now president of the University of West Florida in Pensacola.

Diaz co-sponsored the 2021 legislation allowing colleges and universities to sponsor new charters. The University of West Florida just announced plans to start sponsoring schools.

Academica is also a major campaign contributor. Records that corporate affiliates of the company have donated more than $1.6 million to state politicians, parties and political committees over the past five years. That includes more than $300,000 handed out in the months leading up to the 2026 session — at least $65,000 of which was put into a political committee controlled GOP leaders in the state Senate.

The property tax plan that Academica was apparently lobbying for failed to pass during the Legislature’s regular session, which ended in March.

But so did nearly all of the tax policy changes proposed in the Legislature this year — including tax breaks for everyone from tobacco giant Philip Morris to passenger railroad Brightline and tax cuts on everything from gun silencers to professional tennis tournament tickets.

The various tax proposals essentially froze in place once it became clear that Republican leaders in the state House and Senate were locked in another budget stalemate and would be unable to agree on a new state spending plan before the end of the regular session.

But many will likely resurface again later this spring, whenever lawmakers return to Tallahassee for a special session to finish their work on the budget. The new spending plan must be in place by July 1.

There may be extra urgency on the part of Academica to rush the charter school property tax change into place immediately.

That’s because the additional millage property tax in Miami-Dade County — where Academica’s six new state-imposed charter schools will soon open — is about to expire. The county is expected to schedule another referendum later this year asking voters to renew the tax increase, which now generates more than $400 million a year for area schools.

Getting the governor and Legislature to rewrite the law before that referendum happens would ensure that Academica’s newest charters get a cut of the cash.