The Florida Roundup - ACA premiums, property taxes, immigration court observer and new charter schools

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

This week on The Florida Roundup, we were joined by KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to talk about what’s at stake for Florida as the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits are set to expire (00:00). Then, we spoke with Rep. Tom Fabricio (R-Miami-Dade) about the effort to reform property taxes that will be the focus of the next legislative session (08:32). Plus, we heard from a man who has witnessed hundreds of detention hearings in a Florida federal immigration court (19:34). We also looked at how the largest school district in the state may be cut out of decisions about new charter schools (37:28). And later, we share some listener emails from our inbox (45:28).

Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Great to have you along. Today, affordability of health and housing. Inflation in the Tampa area was up 3% in November compared to a year ago. Now, the Tampa inflation is the most recent data available. on inflation here in the Sunshine State. Two of the most significant categories with rising prices

are housing and health care each was up about 4% in the past year. So how much do you pay for your health insurance? Are you on an Affordable Care Act health plan? And we'll also be talking about housing coming up, specifically property taxes. Do you think you get what you pay for in property taxes? And how does your property tax bill impact your household budget? So it's health housing and affordability today as we begin the Florida round up. Call now 305-9-9. 8,800, 305,995-1800, send us a quick email radio at the Florida Roundup.org. More Floridians rely on enhanced tax credits to buy health insurance through Obamacare than residents of any other state. The extra financial help expires at the end of this year, so it's coming up quick.

The U.S. House passed a health care bill on Wednesday this week that does not extend the enhanced subsidies. Kathy Castor is a Democrat representing Tampa. It is unconscionable that Republicans are ripping away coverage to fund their tax breaks for billionaires and the wealthy and the well-connected. Americans deserve so much better. Republican Greg Stuby from Sarasota appeared on News Nation a day after the House vote. This is not something that is a good thing for Americans. It's not good health care policy. This money goes directly to insurance companies.

Julie Robner is the chief Washington correspondent at KFF Health News and is with us. Julie, first fact check that Republican claim that Affordable Care Act subsidies currently go directly to health insurance companies. Is that true? Well, it is. That's to make it easier for people to get their health insurance without having to, you know, get the money from the government and then pay it to the health insurance company. But it's kind of a fallacy that insurance companies are responsible for higher health care prices. Higher health care prices are responsible for higher insurance premiums. People are putting sort of the card ahead of the horse here. We do know that the cost of health care is going up, and thus the cost of health insurance is following. All the Republicans from Florida voted for the House bill this week.

All the Democratic representatives from Florida voted against it. How does this bill aim to impact health insurance costs for Americans and for Floridians? Well, this was described by one of my colleagues as, you know, some of the Republicans' golden oldies. There are a lot of ideas that Republicans have been floating for years that they haven't been able to get over the finish line. I mean, the fact is Republicans have been fighting the Affordable Care Act since it passed in 2010 and have yet to come up with a really comprehensive, you know, proposal of their own. They want to repeal and replace the ACA, but they've never said what they want to replace it with. So the bill that they passed include some things like, you know, making pharmacy benefit management companies more transparent, which is a bipartisan proposal from last year that got kicked out of a bill at the last minute. They would overturn a court decision from the first Trump administration to make it easier for small businesses to ban together to offer health insurance.

I want to focus on that one because the way we understand the Florida. a health insurance market for Obamacare, as it's dominated by individuals and small business operators. And so this previous attempt at allowing small companies and individuals to band together to get negotiating price or negotiating leverage with health insurance companies was overturned during the first Trump administration. So what's different about this effort? So small businesses can band together and offer health insurance. There are association health plants, but you have to be a bona fide association. So it has to be, you know, a bunch of bakeries or a bunch of coffee shops or a bunch of bicycle shops. They have to have something in

common. Because what we've seen happen over many, many decades is that we've seen, you know, sort of fake associations created for that sole purpose of offering health insurance. And many times they've turned into being scams. And a lot of people have lost a lot of money. Both employers and employees from these, you know, sort of their kind of ERSAT insurance companies, except they're really not, and they're not required to meet the insurance company requirements. So that it was really a safety thing. So Trump tried to, you know, loosen this up by regulation in his first term, and the court struck it down. This would basically put into legislation what Trump had tried to do by regulation.

So what kind of changes are Floridians seen in their January Obamacare premiums since the enhanced tax credits are expiring in, what, just a little bit more than 10 days or so? That's right. And Congress has gone for the year, so we know that they are going to expire. And people are going to see some big increases. You know, we know that the people who are going to be hit hardest are the people sort of at the bottom of the income scale. and at what was the top of the income scale, we're going to revert back to the original subsidies in the Affordable Care Act.

You know, what Congress found when they expanded those subsidies in 2021 is that a lot of people didn't have health insurance because they felt like they couldn't afford it. When they felt like they could afford it, they bought it. So therefore, you know, enrollment on the exchanges went from about 11 million people to about 24 million people, about 22 million of whom are getting subsidies and we'll now see those subsidies change or, in some cases, go away entirely.

And it's over $4 million here in Florida. Julie Robner, Chief Washington correspondent at KFF Health News with us in Washington. Julie, thanks so much for sharing your reporting. Thank you. Caleb has been listening in Clearwater. Go ahead, Caleb. You are on the radio. Hey, I miss you.

I'm not in the business report. I think it's 15 years so much for the day. Well, let me tell you, I'm just as good looking here in 2025 as I was 15 years ago, Caleb. There you go. Go ahead. Tell us your story about health insurance. Oh, well, I'm from Chicago. I quit my job because it was more feasible for me to do that as opposed to paying the fee and working. So no insurance whatsoever. Correct. I'm still young enough, I think, to get away with it.

Okay. They don't accept any fantasy fund tokens out here, you know, so they can't go down that route. Yeah. I think of yourself. I think it used to be called the Invincibles. That's what you used to call the Invincibles, folks who didn't think they needed health insurance. Caleb, thank you for the flash from the past there from Clearwater. Let's go to Marcella in Miami Shores, who's been patient. Go ahead, Marcella. Hi. My husband and I are self-employed and have been relying on the health exchange for a few years now.

And right now we're seeing our premium going up from $1,100 to $3,050 and a deductible or $6,000. And there's really no other choice for us right now since we're self-employed. What kind of choices, what kind of impact on the budget? What kind of decisions are you having to make about the dollars coming in to be able to afford that coverage? Well, right now, my husband has diabetes, so we need influence for him every month. So we are just trying to see something that covers just pharmacies. premiums because there's or pharmacy accessibility because you can record anything else

the premiums that for a family of three is just out of reach yeah marcella that part is that there's no other choice yeah uh that or or without coverage as Caleb and Clearwater made that choice the caller just before you Marcella thank you for sharing your story and Merry Christmas happy holidays to you in Miami shores let's go from health care to home costs here as the debate in the legislature is already underway about the future of property taxes in the state of Florida. Property taxes are levied at the local government level. It's the state lawmakers that are looking for ways to fulfill Governor Ron DeSantis. One of his big priorities this legislative session early next year is to reduce or eliminate most local property taxes

here in Florida. Republican Representative Tom Fabricio is with us, the vice chair of the Tax Writing Committee, the Ways and Means Committee. He's with us here in studio. Tom, nice to see you again. Thanks, Tom. Thanks for inviting me. Merry Christmas. The proposal that passed out of your committee last week boosts the homestead exemption by $200,000 if a home has home insurance. Why is it appropriate for the state to require home insurance in order for a home owner to get a tax break on their property taxes?

Right. Well, to be clear, it would boost it by $200,000 to say it would increase the homestead property tax exemption up to $250,000. But it could be additional. the other exemptions that are currently in play would still apply including the senior citizen tax exemption and of course gold star families

and disabled veterans who of course get full tax exemptions but this would be a substantial increase in a homestead exemption it would be and so we have approximately we have seven or eight bills that are floating in the Florida House there are a total

right now we don't I haven't seen any of the bills that have been put forth by the Florida Senate and I haven't seen the ideas put forth by the governor's office yet. So the point being is that these are conversation starters. We do expect that the Senate will be responding to the seven bills when session starts in early January. This is the first one out of the gate. This is the first one through the committee process that will be presumably destined for the House floor sometime in January. So why is it appropriate in Florida to require home insurance in order to be able to qualify for a homestead exemption so the idea behind this bill and again this is one of several

ideas the idea behind this bill is to keep uh to incentivize homeowners who have these are property owning homeowners so this is homestead this is your home right uh and by the way the only homeowners who don't have to have uh homeowners insurance are folks who have paid off their mortgage right right so this is to incentivize pretty much all homeowners for their homestead property, but also to incentivize folks who don't have homeowners insurance to have it because it is good for Florida for folks to have homeowners insurance. When the wind blows, we want you to be covered. We want you to be able to have your home fixed for you to have gone out to the private market and purchased an insurance policy and then file a claim and have that claim paid. The median

property tax in Florida is around $3,000. The median property insurance for homes with mortgages is about $2,300, arguably pretty close. So one is deductible off federal income taxes, a property tax, right, if you itemize your income taxes. The other one is not. You can't itemize your insurance off of that. So again, why is tying a property tax reduction to home insurance a strategy that Florida voters perhaps should consider?

Well, that's an interesting point that you raised because last year we did pass a bill to eliminate the sales tax on insurance. policies. So we have applied whatever tax savings that there is available to us in the state, because, of course, I don't legislate at the federal level. Of course not. But we have provided that tax savings already to property owners who purchase insurance. Of the sales tax for property insurance. But I guess the question is, on one, you're reducing the ability of a Florida homeowner to itemize their federal taxes by reducing their property taxes. In the other hand, their insurance costs are not being reduced, perhaps. The insurance costs, I,

I, you know, I, let's talk about that. Insurance actually, citizens property insurance released, the press release, I think about a week ago that indicated that in South Florida, in Miami-Dade County, on average, their premiums are going down under 13%, a little bit more than 13%. So premiums are starting to come down in South Florida. Statewide, the premium decrease for citizens' property, for citizens' property insurance is approximately about 10% statewide.

So premiums are starting to come down. massive changes to the insurance laws in Florida back in 2023, and we are seeing those take effect. Do you think requiring home insurance for a property tax exemption is somehow perhaps subsidizing or encouraging the home insurance market, particularly for those homeowners who own their homes outright, who can make a decision whether or not they want to have insurance or not? I think if you look at the actual numbers, and I don't know if you have the numbers, but if you look at the numbers, the majority, the vast majority of homes that are owned, that are homestead properties are have a mortgage and have property insurance.

Yes. So the folks that you're talking about are a vast minimal number of people and they would have the choice. They would, if this is the bill that passes, if the Senate agrees that, hey, that's the idea. So I, you know, the thing is, there's a lot of ifs and their butts. And I'll tell you, my idea, the Tom Fabricio idea is that simply we should just increase the homestead tax exemption. It's $50,000 right now on average.

We should increase that up to. $250,000 or $500,000 across the board and not require home insurance. It's just being a primary homeowner in your home or condominium. It's your primary place. It's in Florida. You get $200, $250,000 of value erased from your tax. Right. I would do that. If it were only me, that's what I would do. This is not a bad idea, though. Actually, all these bills have positives and some of them have negatives. But there's more to be seen because we haven't seen what the Senate's going to come back with. Right. So it is a starting position. Doug in Orlando is listening into the conversation.

Go ahead, Doug. Thanks for listening, and you're on the radio. Doug, you with us? Yes, can you not hear me? There we go. We can hear you now, loud and clear. Go ahead. Okay, I was thinking, cutting property taxes just helps the rich, and it hurts the poor,

it cuts government services, and we already have pretty poor services there, to places up north like Massachusetts and Virginia. If they want to cut taxes, they should be cut the sales tax, So that's what are the hurt for the most. Rich people don't get enough. The property values have gone up. That's why the sales taxes have gone up.

We don't need property values to go up anymore because it makes homes unapprovable. Yeah, Doug, you're going to have a little bit of a rough phone connection there, but I think I get your point. And Representative Fabricio, you Republican leaders tried that last year about cutting sales taxes in Florida. Why not redouble those efforts as opposed to go after the property tax? We looked at sales tax. you in my district office and phone calls and people I've spoken to across the state, the issue of reducing property tax is wildly popular. People want property tax relief. And I'll tell you

how does that compare with the idea of cutting sales tax? Now it can be wildly popular, but is it wildly popular compared to some other option? The issue of sales tax, one of the things that I saw when I looked at the data while cutting any tax is a thing that I would love. But if it's one or the other, the sales tax doesn't affect Floridians the way it would the property tax. The property tax issue is incredibly important. And I'll tell you, when we look at some of the property, the budget increases throughout the state, for example, the budget increase in Miami-Dade County over the last five years is above $800 million. Yeah, what's not included in some of this accounting is the transfers from the federal government

during the COVID years, right, as well as the increases in the underlying property values, while your millage rate, your tax rate could be held steady or go down, your revenue is going to increase because property values have skyrocketed, certainly in South Florida, but all across the state since the pandemic. It's been an issue, but when you look at the fact that it's 800 million over five years and we've only grown by 65,000 people in Miami-Dade County, those numbers are shocking. But there's other comparisons. It's not just population growth, right?

It's salary growth. Well, let's look at employees. Health care cost growth for employees. Miami-Dade County had 2,800 new employees over that period of time. That would work out to be just under $300,000 per employee. That's a lot of money. Janet has been listening in Miami and she's been patient. We want to get to her representative.

Let's get to Janet. Go ahead, Janet. Yes, I would like to know what citizens property agent you're using because we got a quote for our home in 1950s home, metal roof, hurricane windows, hurricane, everything, everything we could possibly do to mitigate, and our with windstorm was well in the $12,000. So if you think that's affordable for someone who's paid off their home, who's done everything the right way, no offense, it's impossible in South Florida, and we're lucky because we bought

her home a long time ago. I can't imagine young people right now. I can't even imagine. Appreciate the point here. Go ahead, Representative. Janet, if you were. would call my office in Tallahassee at 850 717 5110 I would give the phone number one more time 850 717 5110 I would love to look at your your property insurance quote and see if there's

anything that we can do to help you by speaking to citizens on your behalf or directing you to an agent that may be willing to consider other options for you representative I appreciate the willingness there to reach out to Janet and constituent services are number one Right, and bring receipts, bring receipts. Go ahead and bring the invoice. Representative, we'll have to have you back as you and your colleagues really begin the debate in earnest with the legislative session beginning in just a matter of a few weeks in Tallahassee. Thank so much, sir.

Tom, thank you for having me and Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you and your family as well. Tom Fabricio is the vice chair of the Florida House Ways and Means Committee and a representative representing parts of North Miami-Dade County. Now, stick with us here. Coming up next on the Florida Roundup, we are going to take you on a day-in-the-life tour of an observer, a gentleman in Broward County, who has spent most weekdays over the past six months

observing immigration court in Miami. It's a seat that most Americans don't have. We will hear from him coming up next on the Florida Roundup. Stay around. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org.

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Great to have you along. Like a lot of us, William Bosch stands in front of his closet every weekday morning, wondering what to wear. He narrows his choices down to two colors of the same shirt. Morning fashion choice. Do I wear the white AFSC polo or the, black AFSC Polo.

AFSC stands for American Friends Service Committee. It dates back more than a century as an advocacy organization. Botch focuses his work on immigration. It's actually kind of a fine line to walk because since the immigration courts style themselves as federal courts, you do not want to dress. He wants to find a balance in his wardrobe. Insufficiently formally that you upset

the judges with your lack of decorum, But I also do not want to dress so formally that I give the impression that I'm one of the lawyers practicing in the building as so many people going through the process are in desperate need of legal assistance that I cannot provide. Batch has been choosing which shirt and making a one-way, one-hour commute most days for months, taking a train first from Fort Lauderdale. I'm arriving at the court, out of the Air Force Station, ladies and coming. South to Miami. Now arriving Miami Fence Up Station, thank me, the doors, watch, and set the party to train. These check is around in quality belonging. Where he gets on another train.

Please hold on. The train is approaching. Third Street Station. Which drops him off just a couple blocks away from Miami Immigration Court. Now, Batch is not a lawyer. He's not an immigration official. He's not there to get. testimony. He has made this trek most weekdays since the spring to observe. He has watched

hundreds of people appear before immigration judges and documented almost 200 people arrested after their appearances before the U.S. justice system. We asked him to keep an audio diary of one day of him bearing witness on the front lines of President Trump's immigration enforcement crackdown. I am dressed in just about ready to leave the house to catch the train. So I take a few minutes to run down list of detainees I know of from court arrests and check their status in the online detainee locator system to see if people have moved or been moved since the last time I checked on them and where they have been moved. so far I have not seen this morning any changes of status for people I've checked the men I saw arrested on Tuesday are still showing in the system as call ice for details This is a designation that seems to be what they are assigned when they are brought to the Miramar Field Office before they are processed for long-term detention.

It is not clear whether that reflects a delay in inputting and updating their status in the system, or if those men have in fact been there for close to 36 hours at this point. men who are arrested at court on Tuesday morning before 11 o'clock. That is a long time to be in a facility that does not have accommodations for overnight's days. It's 1245. It took that long to work through the morning hearings. Only now can I step outside for a brief break. I did not even have a chance to get to a courtroom before I encountered family members crying as their loved ones are arrested and taken downstairs. It's 3.40. I'm done with master calendar hearings.

The days started off with an arrest before I could even make it into a courtroom. to a courtroom. They ended with an arrest of the very last person with a hearing today. That is seven hours straight. People not only have to deal now with the arrests, but with a new policy. If these silent cooperative agreements in hand, to yank whole families out of their asylum proceedings and tell them they have to travel to a country they've never been to, a country like Honduras or Ecuador or Guatemala, and pursue asylum there, people without lawyers, appearing, following the rules, going through the process, and told they have to

leave the country. They're now at risk of getting picked up at any point and having ICE execute an order of removal against them. The family was in tears. People in court of court were in tears. It's 4pm, a people taken Tuesday morning. I've still not been assigned any detention location in ODLS. As far as I know, they're still sitting in the holdrooms at Miramar. Any conditions not meant for it overnight detention, let alone multi-day holds. Is that what's going to happen to the people taken today? It's 525.

Just got off the train back in Fort Lauderdale Station. Quick walk home. actually a relatively early night these days spent the entire train ride home going over observations with some trusted legal partners trying to make people aware especially of the increasing use of these asylum cooperative agreements to force people into removal to countries they have never been to, countries they have no relationship with, countries that do not actually have a plausible path for asylum for them.

It's 533. I am just walking in the door. arrested Tuesday morning are still showing up as having not been assigned for detention. I don't know what that means for the people taken today. That was Billy Bosch with American Friends Service Committee. That's an immigration advocacy group. Now that was a Thursday in early December. He's been observing immigration court proceedings in Miami most weekdays since the spring. He usually doesn't go to court on Wednesdays. Instead, he comes here, where I am now, just outside the Immigration and Customs

Enforcement Office in Miramar in Broward County. I can see that his group has a table set up across the street from the ICE facility. So let's go talk to him now. Good morning, Buenos Aires. Billy. Hey, I'm Tom Hudson. How are you? Nice to see you. So describe where we are here. Yeah, this appears to be the main field office for the entirety of what they call the Miami area of responsibility, but the area of responsibility is like the entire state. It's like Puerto Rico, I think, is considered that and some of the territories and stuff like that too. So this is a multi-use facility. Primarily it's the check-in location for people, pretty much

anybody who lives south of like Sarasota across to the east coast along that line. They're given appointment, if they have, if they're in proceedings or if they have an order of removal that they can't actually remove them yet, they'll be in some sort of supervision program. And so they'll have intermittent check-in requirements. They'll have to come in, say, this is where I'm living, this is my, like, where my situation is. Everything's the same. And usually they're an appointment to come back in like a year or two or three. Now it's a year and sometimes six months. Everybody today was given an appointment to come back in one month.

We're about 25 miles north of where you spend most of your time during the week in the Miami Immigration Court. Here we are outside the ice facility in Miramar in southern Broward County. Describe the differences between those two environments and why they're both important for you to observe. This is an ice facility. So it's under the Department of Homeland Security, it's kind of a supervision and enforcement building. The immigration courthouse down on the Riverwalk in Miami is under the Department of Justice.

It's called the Executive Office for Immigration Review. And that's where people go when they're put in removal proceedings. They go to make the claim as to why they should stay in the country if they have an asylum claim they want to make or some other kind of relief. If they've been here so long, they can sometimes apply for some sort of what's called cancellation of removal. other sorts of very complicated immigration law. And so these are two distinct, but interoperating components of the immigration system. Here it's very much emphasis on enforcement. There's a lot of suspicion that the employees direct towards the people who have to check in here.

The atmosphere of the personnel at the court is much more. We want to help you through this process, and I'm not going to say it's great because there's lots of bad outcomes that people have there. but at least the attitude that people tend to have towards the people who are going through that is much more helpful and interested in preventing that. And that's why it's been so jarring to see ice intrude on that over the last, what are we, six months now, bringing their arrest and enforcement directly into that courtroom. What have you observed in terms of that legal process as you've sat through hundreds of those court hearings,

probably thousands at this point, that Americans who haven't been inside of an immigration court, during this Trump immigration enforcement process are unaware of? First and foremost, I'd say people are who are trying to figure out exactly what they have to do. They're showing up. They're providing what paperwork they have. They're carefully trying to navigate a very complicated system, usually without an attorney, because even though you're guaranteed the right to have an attorney, you're not guaranteed to be provided with an attorney. And so the vast majority of people who show up there don't have an attorney.

attorneys, so they're trying to navigate a very Byzantine bureaucratic system on their own. A lot of them do a really impressive job, even when a lot of them don't speak English, so they're having to go through multiple layers of translation. A lot of the paperwork and stuff is not provided in their language. They have to get that translated. And I'm just constantly amazed at how diligent and dedicated people are to like, what do I have to do? Doing it, what do I have to do the next time I come back. Given the complex nature of immigration policy and the incredibly fast speed at which the Trump administration is enforcing immigration policy, what have you observed of what's working with the American immigration enforcement system and perhaps what could be approved

upon and what are some of the solutions that you've thought about in the many hours that you've sat and observed in immigration court? That is a complicated question because there are certain baseline underlying assumptions about the system that are below the system that we've set up. And so I can talk about what I can think might be improved within that process, like providing attorneys as opposed to just saying, hey, if you can afford an attorney, go get an attorney, that would make a huge difference. The difference in terms of positive outcomes for people in similar situations, having an attorney versus not having an attorney are very stark. this new administration has cut back on certain legal aid programs that used to be available to people going through that process. So that would be a big difference. I think more broadly speaking, we need to re-examine why we're so eager in general to say people shouldn't come here.

Like we're a big country, we're a very low population density country, we have a lot of needs, our population growth is not on a great trajectory. In migration is a benefit to our country. and we have spent so much money trying to work against that, that's basically self-defeating. What's driving you to spend the time in court, to have this unique perspective that very few Americans have? What is driving you to continue to do that, to get on that train every morning in Fort Lauderdale

and head down to Miami and sit for hours upon hours in the courtroom? Yeah, it's, first and foremost, there's not a lot of people there. The first week, there was a lot of people there was a lot of. of attention to it. There were a lot of reporters there. Now there's a lot of people who are there and confused and they don't have anybody to turn to. And by sitting there, I can at least amass information that I can convey to families who are in similar situations. I can't provide legal aid to them because I'm not a legal professional. I can try to connect them to legal resources. I can at least gather that information that hopefully helps people both in that particularly

scary, confusing situation, but also helps people who are trying to help them in a more substantial way outside of that immediate location. You wear this quite a bit, the emotional toll. At least it seems like to me. Maybe that's just my person. No, it's hard because, again, lacking any sort of real power to do anything except try to provide what information I've seen to other people. Honestly, organizing is not my talents.

Other people are way better. better. I could never put together something like this. My Spanish is awful. So that's, it feels very frustrating at times to see things happen and no, there's not a lot I can do to directly influence it. It's very powerless feeling and I can only imagine that's so much more powerless when, you know, you're going through it with somebody you love and you don't even understand what necessarily is going on because so much has changed recently. But I don't know. I don't want to over-emphasize what I'm feeling. I'm just trying to keep my head down and do what I can. Speaking with Billy Bosch with American Friends Service Committee,

he's observed thousands of immigration court hearings. Now we asked ICE about housing detainees overnight and sometimes several nights at the ICE holding facility in Miramar. It's not a detention facility. ICE told us, quote, individuals are typically not held for extended periods. However, processing times may vary depending on operational requirements or case-specific circumstances. The agency also told us all basic needs are provided for detainees, quote, in accordance with established ICE standards. End quote. I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset

that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Let's talk public education in Florida for a few minutes here. Public school districts across the state have received hundreds of letters of interest by private charter school operators to open classrooms in public school buildings.

Public schools would foot the bill for utilities, maintenance, and other services. Now, charter schools historically have had to be approved only by publicly elected school boards, but as soon as March, the appointed members of Miami-Dade College Board of Trustees will be able to make a final decision for K-12 charter schools in Florida's largest public school district. And experts say the move may present some state constitutional issues. Investigative reporter Danny Rivera and education reporter Natalie LaRoche Pietri for Partner Station WLRN, explain. On a webinar in November, Miami-Dade College told companies that want to open charter schools that, in effect, there's a new sheriff in town.

Charter schools no longer have to go through the elected Miami-Dade School Board members to get approved. They can now go through the college, whose board is all made up of governor appointees. Christy now is the director of authorizing at the Florida Charter Institute, part of the college. A little bit about the process. So as you all know, you can apply to your school district to become a charter school, or you could apply now to us if you're in Miami-Dade County. New charter schools can now go through the college. And the same for schools that have already been approved by the school district.

They can transfer it to the college for oversight. And as no shared, the tectonic shift in charter school policy will happen quickly. Companies had a December 1st deadline for applications. And the final approval will happen in March of 2026. Charter schools are privately run schools that use public money. But they're considered public schools by law. And the Florida Constitution requires they be managed like public schools. Every charter school in Florida is authorized and managed by the elected members of the local school district.

A state law in 2021 allows colleges to do that. And in 2022, the Florida Board of Education approved Miami-Dade College to authorize charters in the county. Miami-Dade County is the testing ground for all things public education in Florida. Crystal Etienne is the president of Eduvoter, an organization that hopes to protect traditional public education in Florida. I believe it's a violation of our Florida Constitution. Article 9, Section 4B of the Florida Constitution says,

the school board shall operate, control, and supervise all free public schools within the school district. And then it goes further on to talk about two school districts may not operate and finance education. But that's what we're doing, essentially. It's not two separate school districts, but it's a parallel system. And they're taking away the authority of the district to make that decision. So that's clearly overreach. Todd Zeebarth is an executive at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. He strongly supports charters but says other states have dealt with constitutional issues for exactly the same reasons. In three states, Kentucky, Montana, West Virginia were tied up in state court around some of

these questions. Zeebarth remembers when Florida in 2008 tried a similar effort to bypass local school districts. It was a couple of years after the state created the Florida Schools of Excellence Commission to directly authorize and supervised charter schools across the state. A state appeals court ruled against it, saying the attempted change created a, quote, parallel system of free public education. So I think there's been this lingering kind of constitutional question there about whether you could create some kind of nondistrict entity. And if so, what it would look like and how would you do it to be constitutional? It's unclear how the 2008 court case could factor into how things play out with Miami-Dade College's new efforts. Zeebarth says some charter schools

might choose the college over the school district for authorization. It just might be either perceived or real feeling that, you know, the oversight at Miami-Dade College might not be as burdensome as it is at the school district. I'm thinking of like Minnesota and Ohio did not have a lot of guardrails around what all of that should look like and had significant problems with school performance and authorizer performance and had to go in later on and pass legislation to clean up the mess, which then resulted in chronically low-performing schools and low-performing authorizers. Florida has 739 charter schools, with nearly 400,000 students across them, according to the Florida consortium of public charter schools. I have not seen in my five years here a single

application be denied, and so I'm not sure why they would choose somewhere else. Louisa Santos is on the district school board. She represents District 9. school board members, it's a high contrast because we are accountable to voters. And I can tell you that voters remind us all the time. We can be replaced through elections if they aren't happy with us. Board of trustees members, on the other hand, are appointed by the governor. And it gets even more complicated. The chairman of the board of trustees, Michael Bileca, owns a charter school company. And fellow board members, Roberto Alonzo and Mary Blanco are also elected. Miami-Dade County school board members. None of them responded to our interview requests.

If the college approves charters, the elected board wouldn't have the same power in holding the school or network accountable. In other words, elected members wouldn't be able to perform one of their most important roles. If that's the way the state of Florida wants to go, then like eliminate school boards altogether. And by the way, it creates so much confusion in our communities. As charters and public dollars flowing to private schools have expanded, enrollment in traditional public schools has dropped. Some districts like Broward County have had to close and repurpose schools due to private sector competition. On top of that, a new law is expected to allow charter schools to move into facilities owned by school districts if the building is deemed to be underutilized. School districts will still be required to cover things like building maintenance and electric builds.

A major charter recently expanded here, all the way from New York, Charter Network Success Academy hopes to enroll between 8,000 and 10,000 students in the next five years and eventually grow into other parts of the state, according to the Miami Herald. Here's Governor Ron DeSantis making the announcement at a press conference earlier this year. And the difference is, you know, in New York, they do everything they can do to try to prevent you from being successful. Here in Florida, we're going to do everything we can to ensure that you're successful. And so I think that the sky's going to be the limit for what they're going to be able to do in the state of Florida.

Here is success CEO Eva Moskowitz at the same event. I'm so excited to work with other Miami educators, business and civic leaders, and the diverse set of community leaders here in Miami. It's a little emotional. I have been fighting, as the governor said, in a blue seat. state. I'm not used to being welcomed. In fact, the Florida Charter Institute issued a research paper in October arguing that charter schools, like Success Academy, should be able to take over the space of traditional public schools. Under this new system, the school district could find itself with limited say in the matter as they share the authorizing role with Miami-Dade College. I'm Danny Rivera. And I'm Natalie LaRoche Pietri in Miami. And I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida

Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. Finally on the Roundup this week, reading your messages in our email inbox. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org is the address. Last week we spoke about speech and consequences and Charles wrote, I'm very concerned with our elected politicians attempting to restrict our abilities to freely express our opinions. Once they achieve their goals, we will be powerless to question their actions or anything else they choose to deem unacceptable. A few weeks ago, we talked about the redistricting effort here in Florida that is just getting underway. Nala wrote, this redistricting should not happen. How can you call yourself a winner when you're disrupting the Constitution and rescinding civil rights? Let freedom ring. Let people

have their choice not diminish their voting rights. Peggy in North Central Florida wrote, I'm opposed to drawing new district lines in our state. Redistricting in the middle of a decade is unnecessary anti-democratic and would cost taxpayers a lot of money that could be better used to help struggling families or our environment. About a month ago, we talked about a poll from Florida Atlantic University that found over half of Floridians consider leaving the Sunshine State in search of cheaper living. Well, Robert and Flagler Beach was listening, and he wrote, When Tom opened the phone lines for listeners to express why they want to leave Florida, I was shocked at the responses I heard. Most of the people's opinions were not those whom I was used to.

I really don't know what has happened to America as a whole. After retiring, my plan was to stay in Florida for income tax purposes and travel as much as possible. Now, I don't believe that living in Florida is practical due to extreme conservative policies coming from Tallahassee. The only problem is I don't know where to go. The Friday after Thanksgiving, we presented our winter reading program. Now, an encore of that broadcast will be coming up for the first Florida Roundup of 2026 on January 2nd. And we've been asking for some book recommendations from you. Barb wrote, a land remembered by Patrick Smith. Barb, that was one of two books that was given to me about 16 years ago when I first moved to Florida. Claudia in Holmes Beach wrote,

I'm a retired middle school teacher from Michigan, and I've been living in Florida for the past 15 years. I recommend an excellent but a bit disturbing read that I read this summer before the island we live on was hit by both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. The book is called The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks Dalton. It's set in Florida and follows the life of a woman born in the throes of a horrific hurricane. And then finally, Emma and St. Augustine wrote us this note. You as host are amazing, patient, other-centered, open-minded, truth-loving, and earbalm, for the listener. Ah, Emma.

Can you blush on the radio? That is our program for today. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WSF in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Denise Royal. WLRN's vice president of radio is Peter Barrett's. The program's technical director is M.J. Smith. Engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson, Harvey Bessard, and Ernesto J. Our theme music is by Miami Jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at Aaron Leibos.com. Send us an email.

Let us know what's happening in your slice of Florida. Our address is radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Thanks for calling, emailing, listening, and of course, and above all, supporting public media here in Florida. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend. Support for Florida. Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians.

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