JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A major bill that helps address low pay for extracurricular leaders like coaches and toughens restrictions on rampant transfer issues has made it through the Legislature and will now head to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for his signature to make it a law.
The House resoundingly passed SB 538 on Monday afternoon in a 104-6 vote, and the Senate passed it again 37-0 after signing off on amendments to the bill on Tuesday afternoon.
For high school coaches who have sought better pay for years as responsibilities and hours have increased substantially, this is the first step in trying to close the gap.
News4JAX has tracked the coaching pay issue for more than a decade, and now, it’s up to the school districts to come to the table and help boost coaching pay.
Rep. Adam Anderson (R-Palm Harbor), cosponsor of the House bill, has said from the time he took up the coach pay fight that it is long overdue to start making inroads on the issue. High school football head coaches in Florida earn an annual supplement ranging from a low of $3,038 (Broward County) to a high of $8,317 (Charlotte County). Their teaching salary is separate.
“I don’t think many folks here in Tallahassee really understood how different our compensation structure is for coaches compared to surrounding states,” he said. “And in Florida, we like to win. We like to lead the nation. This is not one that we were winning or leading in, but that’s all changing now.”
Anderson was at the forefront of the bill more than a year and a half ago. He and Shane Abbott, a Republican who represents portions of Calhoun, Holmes, Jackson, Walton and Washington counties, authored the House version of the bill. Nothing is official until it’s signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, but Anderson said he’s confident the bill will get there.
“I’m feeling very optimistic that we will get this done,” Anderson said during a break from a House session.
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Sen. Corey Simon, a Republican who represents several Tallahassee-area counties, was the sponsor of the Senate version. He’s a big-time sports proponent who played at Florida State and went on to become a first-round draft pick of the Eagles. So, it wasn’t surprising to see Simon lean on visible figures like Jimbo Fisher, Mike Alstott, Cris Carter and others during trips in Tallahassee. Anderson said that lawmakers being able to talk to and hear from professional athletes and coaches about the topic left a significant impact.
“They provide a different type of guidance that a student is not going to get in the classroom and maybe a different type of guidance that they’re going to get at home too. So, they are truly some of the most valuable mentors to our students,” he said. “And I know no coach does it for the money, nor should they, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t support them more fairly. And that’s what we’re seeking to do with this legislation.”
How can the state pull it off?
The resistance is going to be tough to overcome.
School districts in some places like Duval County haven’t given coaches a supplemental pay raise in decades. Many others don’t pay coaches anything additional for making the playoffs. Four of the 11 counties in the News4JAX coverage region have coaches on 10-month teaching contracts and don’t pay anything for work in the summer months.
“What I can tell you with certainty is that we’re going to be working with our superintendents. We’re going to be working with our school board members to make sure that they understand this framework and really encourage them to execute it,” Anderson said. “If we get a couple, three or four over the next few months that adopt these policies and start considering coaches as administrative personnel, start adopting policies so that the booster clubs can support them.”
Anderson was quick to add that this bill doesn’t just apply to coaches, but all extracurricular leaders like STEM club or the band director.
Where will the money come from?
This question comes up all the time, and it’s a very big one. Public schools are hemorrhaging money as students take advantage of vouchers to attend charter and private schools.
As students leave the public school system, roughly $9,000 in funding leaves with each one. That’s why public-school districts everywhere in Florida are facing record budget and funding shortfalls. St. Johns County, annually rated as the state’s top district, announced last month that it is facing a $23 million budget shortfall. The money for raises will not come on the backs of taxpayers, something that helped the bills sail through committee after committee.
The funding paths
The legislation creates two paths for extracurricular administrators to see an increase in pay. The first is a request through a superintendent to pay them above what their current union-negotiated supplement is, thus becoming an administrative-type role. Should districts do that with an extracurricular leader like a coach, that salary can’t exceed what the highest-paid administrator in the district earns.
The second and more likely avenue is pay through booster clubs. Smaller districts already use that option to pay coaches more, but larger ones in the News4JAX coverage region do not allow that. Coaches at districts in places like Duval and St. Johns counties have said that receiving extra pay through a booster club would be the easiest solution.
The transfer element
The other significant portion of the bill is the much-needed assist with the rampant issue of transferring in Florida. FHSAA executive director Craig Damon detailed the struggles the organization faces in trying to police the systemic issues created by the state’s controlled open enrollment law.
Damon has praised the open-enrollment school choice option, but said it’s been taken advantage of for athletic reasons. Students and parents have been able to exploit transfer policy and bounce from school to school simply for athletic purposes. The bill slaps restrictions on the ability to transfer freely and limits a student-athlete’s choice to school hop multiple times a year for sports purposes. When Damon spoke in front of a Senate committee earlier this year, he detailed a football player who changed teams in the playoffs after his original team was eliminated, and singled that out as the abuse the FHSAA needed help to curb.
Students – identified in the bill as home education, charter school, private school, Florida Virtual School, alternative school, or traditional public school – would be limited to sports at one school per year unless unique circumstances.
Those include dependents of military members who relocate, a change in residence due to court-ordered custody situations or a foster-care-type move.
Additional situations would require approval from the executive director of the governing body of high school sports.
Bridgewater Bill passes
Also passing the Senate unanimously Wednesday was SB 178, also known as the Teddy Bridgewater Act. Sen. Shevrin Jones (D-Miami-Dade County) sponsored the bill after Bridgewater, a former volunteer coach at Miami Northwestern, was suspended for a year for paying for food and Uber rides and recovery services for his players. By letter of the FHSAA law, Bridgewater’s generosity was a major violation. That drew national scorn from every corner of the country, and led to Florida Department of Education commissioner Anastasios “Stasi” Kamoutsas to very publicly call for change so that a person trying to help wouldn’t be punished.
The Jones’ bill allows coaches to contribute up to $15,000 of their own money to help their players.