(1) Subject to funds provided in the General Appropriations Act, the High Growth District Capital Outlay Assistance Grant Program is hereby established. Funds provided pursuant to this section may only be used for the purposes identified in s. 1011.71(2). (2) In order to qualify for a grant, a school district must meet the following criteria:(a) The district must have levied the maximum mills of nonvoted discretionary capital outlay millage authorized in s. 1011.71(2) for each of the prior 5 fiscal years. (b) The district must receive revenue from a current voted school capital outlay sales surtax or a portion of the local government infrastructure surtax as authorized in s. 212.055. (c) The revenue derived from the nonvoted discretionary capital outlay millage, when divided by the district’s capital outlay FTE students, produces a value that is less than the statewide average maximum potential funds per capital outlay FTE student for the most recent fiscal year.
(d) The district must have equaled or exceeded the greater of 1 percent average growth or twice the statewide average of growth in capital outlay FTE students over the prior 5-year period.
(e) The total capital outlay FTE students of the district is greater than 24,000 students.
(3) The funds provided in the General Appropriations Act shall be allocated pursuant to the following methodology:(a) For each eligible district, the Department of Education shall sum the calculated revenue from the maximum potential nonvoted discretionary capital outlay millage and the revenue received from the voted sales surtax as provided in paragraph (2)(b) and divide that sum by the number of capital outlay FTE students for the same period.
(b) The Department of Education shall determine, for each eligible district, the amount that must be added to the funds per capital outlay FTE calculated pursuant to paragraph (a) to produce the statewide average value per capital outlay FTE for the revenues identified pursuant to paragraph (a).
(c) The value calculated for each eligible district pursuant to paragraph (b) shall be the maximum amount of a grant that may be awarded to a district pursuant to this section.
(d) In the event the funds provided are insufficient to fully fund the maximum grants calculated pursuant to this section, the Department of Education shall allocate the funds based on each district’s prorated share of the total maximum award amount calculated for all eligible districts.
