JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The push for better pay for coaches in the state and stronger guardrails for the Florida High School Athletic Association to enforce transfer restrictions passed another major hurdle on Monday afternoon.
Senate Bill 538 had overwhelming support in the House of Representatives, a 104-6 vote that garnered just mild objections from Democrats on the floor. It passed a Senate vote last month, 38-0.
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Since there was an amendment made to the bill sent from the Senate, it has to go back to the Senate once more for a final sign off.
That should just be a matter of time now.
Should the bill pass another Senate vote (a very likely scenario) it would eventually be sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis to be signed into law. If the bill is presented to DeSantis during the legislative session (ends Friday), he has seven days to sign or veto it.
If the bill is presented to DeSantis after the session ends, he has 15 days to sign or veto it. DeSantis has said on multiple occasions that he would sign a bill to improve coaching pay.
The push to find a way for coaches in high school to earn more began at the end of 2021 when the Florida Coaches Coalition took up the fight.
That evolved into multiple trips to Tallahassee to work with lawmakers on solutions. What came out of that over parts of two legislative sessions were bills that didn’t commit taxpayer dollars directly to paying extracurricular leaders like coaches but created ways to allow them to seek more money.
🚨🚨🚨
— Florida Coaches Coalition (@PayFLCoaches) March 9, 2026
WE DID IT!
Legislation has passed in Florida!
After decades of being denied what they deserve, Florida coaches will finally be valued in action, not words.
A HISTORIC moment for our profession.
LET THE WHOLE STATE HEAR IT!#PAIDFLCOACHES pic.twitter.com/Xk4b6tO4RP
With teacher pay among the lowest in the country and budgets everywhere in the red as students leave public schools in waves, lawmakers settled on pushing the choices back to school districts on paying those leaders anything extra.
Those include the ability to ask superintendents directly for a pay increase or be paid by a third party like a booster club. There is no mandate that districts do either of those, but the architects of the bill think that it will slowly happen across districts.
Reps. Adam Anderson (R-Palm Harbor) and Shane Abbott, a Republican who represents Panhandle areas in Calhoun, Holmes, Jackson, Walton and Washington counties, authored the House portion of the legislation. Sen. Corey Simon, a Republican who represents portions of 13 counties in west Florida, handled the Senate version of the bill.
Lawmakers had almost universally embraced the bill because it doesn’t commit public money to raises for extracurricular leaders during a time of financial strain in Florida.
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Monday’s session was the first, albeit limited, resistance to the bill.
Rep. Robin Bartleman, a Democrat who represents part of Broward County, was the most vocal member against the bill.
“You’re going to create have and have not issues because schools in high socioeconomic areas will be able to raise more money in their booster clubs. So, I just think this sends the wrong message. I mean, if we’re putting all this emphasis on a coach, maybe their salary should be tied to their winning record, like a teacher’s salary is tied to the test score,” she said. “I mean, this doesn’t make sense to me. This isn’t what education is about.”
Abbott countered that the bill wasn’t just about athletics, and the financial portion is available to any person who oversees an extracurricular activity.
Reps. Bartleman, Daryl Campbell, Ashley V. Gantt, Dianne Hart-Lowman, Michele Rayner and Kelly Skidmore, all Democrats, were the six who voted against the bill.
Rep. Kimberly Daniels (D-Jacksonville), spoke for a few minutes on how much coaches meant to her growing up, and encouraged everyone to vote in favor of the bill.
“If it were not for coaches in my life, I don’t know where I would be right now. When I didn’t have track spikes, money for meals for the roads, a hotel, it was coaches that did that,” she said. “My mind was blown the first time I participated in the Junior Olympics. I would have never gotten there except for the coaches in the schools and the coaches in the community. …
“I was sneaking in clubs at 14 years old. So, at 14, I was in the club scene. It was coaches who pulled me out of that club scene and brought me to be the fastest woman in the nation in junior college, and then a full scholarship at Florida State.”
Coaches in Florida are paid a supplement for their work as coaches. Those supplements are negotiated in collective bargaining by unions, which is another topic of disdain by Republican lawmakers.
Locally, the supplement for a head football coach in the area ranges from a low of $3,809 (Putnam County) to a high of $7,217 (Nassau County). The supplements are in addition to teaching pay.
In the News4JAX 11-county coverage region, four school districts (Columbia, Duval, Nassau, St. Johns) pay high school football head coaches on standard 10-month contracts. Three (Baker, Clay, Flagler) stretch those teaching contracts to 11 months.
The outliers (Bradford, Putnam, Suwannee, Union) have their high school football head coaches on 12-month contracts. Coaches who are not on 12-month contracts are not paid during the summer.
The transfer portion of the bill is big, too.
It would give the FHSAA authority to craft rules to address the issue of rampant transfers in the state due to Florida’s open enrollment laws. Lawmakers want to curb the abuse of the rule that sees student athletes school hop for the best athletic situation, with some playing for a different school in each season.