Gov. Ron DeSantis (00:00):
… county schools. We have with us our incoming Florida Department of Education Commissioner Stasi Kamoutsas. So some of you may not know him. I can tell you if anyone in Florida wants to run afoul of any of Florida's pro-parent policies, you'll find out who he is very quickly and he'll be ready. We also have the Duval County School Board Chair Charlotte Joyce. Thank you. Our principal here at Ocean Way Elementary School, Delayna Simpson. Dr. Chris Bernier, Duval County School Superintendent, and we have Antoine Smith who's a rising sixth grader and he had just graduated from Ocean Way Elementary School, so he's going to talk a little bit about that.
(00:59)
Well, I hope everybody had a good 4th of July and enjoyed, we've stressed in Florida to really lean into the upcoming 250th anniversary for next July 2026. And so a couple of days before July 4th, we were in Jefferson County at the head of that county in Monticello, and we unveiled… So what we're doing is we're actually bringing in… A lot of places around this country for years. We're tearing down statues, particularly of the Founding Fathers. We believe in putting up statues of the Founding Fathers. And so we did a nice statue that we got, our Secretary of State Cord Byrd from here in Jacksonville, he was able to get a Thomas Jefferson statue that we now have unveiled that's in front of the courthouse in Jefferson County, Florida.
(01:55)
We previously had unveiled in the Florida Capitol, a statute of George Washington that's on loan from Mount Vernon. You actually have to request from the Governor of Virginia if you want to do a replica. So we're actually going to do a replica of that because eventually going to go back up north. So we'll have a replica of that. And then we have a number of counties in Florida that are named after various Founding Fathers. So we did the Jefferson. We will do something for Franklin County. We'll do something for Madison, Hamilton, Monroe, all the way down in the Florida Keys. Give us an excuse to go down there and enjoy, pretty good spot. And it'll be beyond that. I mean, it's not just going to be those counties.
(02:39)
But I do think it's important we're here in an elementary school, one of the things that we've really stressed in Florida is civics education and making sure that the students that go through our K-12 system are not just blank slates when they get out, that they actually have a foundation of understanding what went into the formation of this country, what are the principles that it was founded on, how those principles been applied and acted on throughout the course of American History, principles reflected in the Declaration of Independence, but then later in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
(03:13)
And we haven't just said that and given lip service to that because I think a lot of people will give lip service to that, but we've actually put our money where our mouth is. We put a lot of action into developing strong standards. And the way I look at it is you're going to have people that graduate from the school system here in Duval County, people will go to our state universities. They'll pursue different paths. Some people may pursue a path right out of high school. Some people may go to college. Some people may go to graduate school. But no matter everyone will be called upon to exercise the duties and responsibilities of being a citizen of the American Republic. And if we are graduating people and putting folks out there with that that do have good reference points to understand what went into it, why it's fragile, why you got to continue to fight for it, we're going to be so much better off.
(04:07)
And so as part of the budget, I just signed into law last week, we were able to continue our momentum with civics education. So we noticed, okay, so first of all, you got to embrace it, right? I mean, some places just don't embrace it. I mean, I don't know what kind of civics they teach in like San Francisco, but probably not going to be something that would meet my approval. I don't know. Maybe we'll send Stasi out to San Francisco and he can kind of talk about what Florida's doing. I don't know how much they'd like that. But so you have to embrace it.
(04:42)
But it's one thing to say, okay, we really want an emphasis, you got to take certain courses or have it certain things reflected, yes. But you got to have teachers that really believe in it and are knowledgeable in it. And the reality is, if you go to most colleges and universities now, and you really wanted to focus on American founding civics, all this, honestly, it isn't that great of offerings. A lot of that's considered passe. It doesn't really coincide with the ideological fads that we've seen taken over so many college campuses. I mean, we've obviously fought that in Florida and I think more successfully than any other state. But the reality is there's a lot of academia, they would never want to talk about the American Revolution or some of this stuff. They would much rather prefer talk about their niche subjects, which really have no application to the real world or really, or anything other than just kind of academic empty calories. But yet that's kind of what's out there.
(05:38)
So we know that. We understand that. That's just the fact of life. We're trying to change it in Florida, which is important. And that's why we have things like the Hamilton Center at University of Florida. That's why we've overhauled New College in Sarasota, made that a classical liberal arts college similar to like a Hillsdale college. That's why we have the Adam Smith Center at Florida International University. I think you've had almost every right of center head of state in Latin America, former head of state has been there. All these guys that have been presidents of these countries go there and talk about. So we've really done… But the reality is where we are.
(06:15)
So we created through the Florida Department of Education, a first-of-its-kind teacher certification civics curriculum. So you can earn a Florida Civic Seal of Excellence credential if you go through this course that we've worked to create. And we've worked with scholars who actually understand all this stuff from Hillsdale College, other places. And if you go through it, you get a $3,000 bonus. So there's an incentive to want to go through it. But it will provide all the intellectual firepower about what went into forming the United States.
(06:50)
It's like July 4th, I did the thing with Jefferson and we're talking about, he wrote the Declaration of Independence, obviously it's a big achievement because you can have a great idea, but you have to be able to express that in ways that are going to captivate people and rally people. So he deserves a lot of credit for that. But he didn't just come up with those ideas. I mean, that was centuries in the making that really informed how the founders viewed this stuff. And so all of that goes into our Civic Seal of Excellence program. And I don't think there's any other program anywhere in the country that offers what we're offering for teachers and to make sure… And it's not just civics teachers or government teachers, you're an English teacher, you want to do Civic Seal. Yeah, do it. I think that that's important. It informs different things that we see throughout with literature and other things. If you are a history teacher, if you're other teachers, we want people to be able to do it. So we got that funded.
(07:45)
We also have Speech and Debate in Florida. Every county in Florida has Speech and Debate program. I mean, what was it five years ago, it was like 10 or 12 counties had it? So now we've done that. And one of the reasons why you do it, first of all, it's just important, especially in an age where people are always on their phones and doing all that, you need to be able to get up and express yourself verbally. That is important. And it may come in handy later in life depending on what you do, as long as we can prevent AI from taking over everything. Very, very dangerous some of the stuff that they're talking about doing. I mean, it's one thing to use technology to enhance the human experience, but it's another thing to have technology supplant the human experience.
(08:29)
And we're going to be working in Florida to develop a coherent approach to this. It's rapidly changing. On the one hand, we can't put our head in the sand and just say, we're not going to deal with AI at all because it is becoming a fact of life, but we can't just turn the reins over to a bunch of tech overlords that doesn't work. That ultimately isn't going to be what's best. So you have different things with respect to that, that we're going to really have to start to do. But what we're doing here, I think, I've stressed these things, I think it's really, really important. You're in a position where you're going to be able to really get, I think the firepower. No one else is doing this. And so we're happy to be able to lean in on it.
(09:14)
Now, that's just one of the things that we've been able to do. The announcement today, I think is going to be really, really exciting. But before I get into that, we are number one in higher education, nine years in a row by US News and World Report. Here we are at elementary school, that's obviously further down the line. But just think about it, so since I became governor 2019, the amount of in-state tuition that has increased has been zero. Not one penny of increase on in-state tuition for our state universities. And the reality is it's harder to get into these universities than it used to be. And so if you get into University of Florida, for example, chances are you're qualifying for a Bright Futures Scholarship. So you have zero tuition or maybe 75% off your tuition. So that's something that's very, very important because I think there've been a lot of mediocre educations offered around the country in recent years that burden people with massive amounts of debt. And the reality is we're showing that it doesn't require massive amounts of debt to be able to get a high quality education.
(10:21)
So of all the things that we're doing, we've worked to overhaul and to really focus. People say we're creating universities that are, I think one said the Harvards of the unwoke, so we'll let Harvard do their thing, we'll do our thing. That's fine. Different strokes, right? But I think we're doing it more consistent with the classical mission higher education. We've been ranked number one overall, I think two of the last three years. Number one for education freedom and number one for parent involvement in education. So those are all very, very important.
(10:56)
They just had this Supreme Court decision saying, parents have a right to remove their kids from some of this offending sexualized curriculum, which I think was a great decision. But we made sure that was the case years ago in Florida with signing our parents' rights and education. So we've been ahead of the curve on all these things.
(11:20)
Now, I'm not one to think that just simply throwing money at problems necessarily solves it. Sometimes it can. I mean, we had to build a bridge after Hurricane Ian, and so I didn't wait for the federal government. We just funded it. We built in three days and people could resume their recovery. And so yes, sometimes that's what you just need to put the rounds on the target. But in terms of education, we've seen around the country, some of the places that spend the most per pupil have some of the worst results. And I think it's because that is going to feed the bureaucracy more than it's going to feed student achievement and student success. And so the budget I signed is a record amount of pupil funding for Florida, and I am proud of that, but I also understand that in and of itself is not a silver bullet.
(12:10)
One of the things that we've done since I've been governor is, so this year it's almost 16 billion we send down to school districts. There's a bunch of stuff that goes into how our schools were funded, the majority comes from the state program. Which is great. But you say, well, teachers need to be paid more. So you put more money into the education budget. But it goes down to the school districts, there's no guarantee they use that to increase salaries for teachers. And so what we did a few years back was we said, we are going to mark off in our education funding something that can only be used, a pot of money that can only be used by school districts to increase teacher pay. And so we started that years ago. It was a few hundred million, this year's budget for just teacher pay, $1. 36 billion. So that's an increase over last year of $102 million. And so that goes to the folks that are in the classroom, and we've made a lot of strides and we've probably put billions of dollars into this.
(13:13)
And that's not only the school districts, that also is our public teachers that are able to get that done. We also had a $434 million for voluntary pre-K and school readiness to ensure our youngest students are set up to future education success. And on higher ed, we had full funding of the Bright Futures Scholarship Program. So you think about it's like if your kid gets into University of Florida with Bright Futures, do you want to spend how much money it is for tuition in some private school out of state? Look, if it's MIT, maybe that would be worth it, right? There may be some examples. But I would say most examples, it would not be worth making that decision. So the Bright Futures I think has been a big success, and I've been a big supporter of that. So I'm happy to do it.
(14:05)
So all in all, it was a good year to be able to deliver some of these things for the people of Florida. We're excited about that. Now, that's all well and good, and especially when you talk about funding. But how does that translate into results? Because that ultimately is what matters, is the results. And so we now have the data for both the school grades for the academic year, as well as our progress monitoring results for what we did. So I'm happy to announce that Florida schools earned improved grades across all school types, including 71% of all graded schools are now earning either an A or a B grade. That's a really big deal. This exceeds our performance last year, in which 64% of schools
Gov. Ron DeSantis (15:00):
… earned an A or a B grade in 2025, the number of elementary schools earning an A grade increased by four points compared to 24 number of middle schools receiving A increased by nine points, and the number of high schools earning an A increased by 10 points year over year. And now in raw numbers, that means nearly 200,000 more students are enrolled in A and B schools in the past academic year than in the previous academic year. So that's some real numbers. And in this past school year 28 Florida School Districts received an A grade, 31 districts received a B, eight districts C, and no districts received either a D or an F. And I think Duval was A, correct? So Duval's gone from B to A, so congratulations.
(15:56)
Now, one of the things that we had to tackle, so you have to have accountability, you have to measure whether students are learning anything. You can't just say you're not going to do that. On the flip side, we had gotten into a situation where so much emphasis was placed on this one end-of-year test, and that was the sole measure of how these schools were doing, how the students were doing. So we had a lot of very good faith concern about that, and people were offering ideas about how maybe we could do it better. So there's some people that just don't want any accountability, and they have different reasons for why they don't want to do it, but if the people that agree, "Hey, we need to know whether we're actually doing a good job here, how do you measure that?" And people had differences of opinion with that.
(16:47)
So we did see an issue with so much emphasis being placed on one high-stakes end-of-year test, not only for just teaching to the test, which they would do for the last couple weeks of the school year, but also if a student does poorly on the end-of-year test, well, they're in summer when you get the results, so how are you going to remediate that? You really don't have a time during the school year to be able to remediate it. So there were a lot of issues that went into that. So we decided that we would institute reforms and embrace this concept known as progress monitoring. So with progress monitoring, teachers, students, and parents are provided real-time continuous actionable assessments at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year to drive student achievement. So at the beginning of the year you can measure where they are, middle of the year, if they're all short of the progress we expect you can talk to parents, talk to students, teachers can do something different, then obviously at the end of the year we expect to see some improvement by then.
(17:50)
And so our progress monitoring testing that has been now going on, so this has now been, is this the third year that we've done it? Now, the first year was a trial run, and so really it's been the last two that have been full throttle. We're continuing to see statewide improvements in Grades 3 through 10 in English Language Arts, reading, writing, and Mathematics, during this recent school year. In fact, substantial gains were achieved for the second year of the row in this past school year with improvements in every single statewide assessment. Performance for Grades 3 through 10 in English Language Arts increased by 21 percentage points from the beginning of the school year till the end of the school year with 57% of students scoring on grade level or above by the end of the school year compared to just 36% in the beginning of the school year.
(18:41)
Student performance on English Language Arts for those grades increased by four percentage points year over year, and by eight percentage points during our first year of progress monitoring. So that means almost a million students scored out or above grade level in 2025, an increase of 114,000 students over the 22, 23 school year. Performance for Grades 3 to 8 Mathematics increased by 44 percentage points from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year with almost 60% scoring on grade level or above at the end of the school year, compared with just 15% in the beginning. In 2024, 25, student performance on Math for Grades 3 through 8 increased by 3% year over year and by 6% two years compared to now. So that means 660,000 students scored at, or above grade level in 2025, and that's an increase of almost 51,000 students over the 22, 23 school year.
(19:42)
And so when we look at all Mathematics assessments, including high school level end of course exams, we had 926,000 students scoring at, or above grade level. And again, that's an increase of about a hundred thousand students since the 22, 2023 school year. So we believe in innovating, we believe adapting to changing circumstances. I think the progress monitoring has led to better student performance and better student achievement. There's always things that we're looking to do to improve, and if there's policies that we need to implement at the state level, either through the Education Department or if we need to go to the legislature to seek reforms, we won't hesitate to do so. But I know that there was a lot of relief when we did progress monitoring because I think people had grown frustrated with the end of year high stakes test, but there was also concern by some, "Well, is this actually going to measure? Are we still going to have high standards?"
(20:40)
And I think the results thus far proven that it is accurately measuring, and it is allowing these students to improve throughout the school year. So I want to thank everybody that's been involved in this transition over the last few years. I know a lot of people were happy to see a transition, but it also did require additional work. And so I think parents, and students, and teachers, by and large are happy with the current approach, and we want to keep building off that success. So thanks everyone. It's great announcement, great data to be getting in, and I want to start bringing up some folks to be able to speak. So we'll start with Stasi and then we'll go to the Duval.
Anastasios Kamoutsas (21:24):
Well, good afternoon. I'm humbled and honored to be here joining you, Governor DeSantis, with this wonderful announcement. For those who don't know me, my name is Anastasios Kamoutsas. Everybody calls me Stasi for short. And recently, I was fortunate to be selected by our State Board of Education to be Florida's next Commissioner of Education. I look forward to hitting the ground running next week at our Teacher of the Year celebration where we will celebrate the high quality educators here in Florida. Today's announcement is a direct reflection of their efforts as well as the hard work of our students and our parents. I also want to thank those who are statewide leading these efforts in our State Board of Education.
(22:04)
Today we have with us Esther Byrd, Kelly Garcia, and Ben Gibson who serve on our State Board of Education, and I'd be remiss if I didn't thank the staff at the Department of Education who works behind the scenes day in and day out to make sure that this data is delivered in real time. Juan Copa, Paul Burns, and Steve Concar, thank you all for your efforts. I also see in the crowd today, Superintendent Bernier. Thank you so much for hosting us, my friend. And several school board members, some of which were recently elected, congratulations. Congratulations. Yes.
(22:38)
As well as some folks who have worked behind the scenes with me for years, April Carney, Charlotte Joyce, now chair, congratulations. It's good to see you. Together, thanks to the bold vision of Governor DeSantis, students are receiving an education in an effective learning environment, and the results speak for themselves. Florida students are benefiting from Governor DeSantis' policies, there's no questions about it. In 2022 when the governor signed the bill to establish progress monitoring, we put Florida students on a better pathway to success. With real-time data throughout the year, teachers and parents are able to provide necessary interventions for their students before the end of the school year. This change has been not monumental in ensuring that our students have every opportunity to succeed. And the data doesn't lie. The governor gave you the high-level data, but I want to speak about specific groups like students with disabilities who increased performance by four percentage points over the last year in both English Language Arts and Mathematics, or Hispanic students who increased performance by three percentage points over the last year in English Language Arts and four points in Mathematics.
(23:51)
African-American students increased performance by five percentage points in both English Language Arts and Mathematics, and students from economically disadvantaged families increased performance by three percentage points in both English Language Arts and Mathematics. You are talking about hundreds of thousands of students that are benefiting from these policies that this governor has championed. I also have to give credit to Commissioner Manny Diaz, who was a senator at the time when he championed this legislation. Thank you, Commissioner, for all that you've done over the past six and a half years for Education. Florida students are reaping the benefits of our first-in-the-nation approach to testing because it goes beyond just measurement, student performance at the end of the year. And student success continues to increase on our end of the course exams as the governor highlighted, but I want to talk about specifically the emphasis on civics in US history where our students are now at 70% on grade level when it comes to these subject areas.
(24:57)
This might be one of the most important subjects we can teach to our students as they grow into adults. And Governor DeSantis has been unrivaled in his support for civics education. Now, school grades. Student assessment is not the only thing we measure in Florida, and it's not the only area in which we're improving. Florida schools are improving across the board, and this is a direct result of the governor's innovative policies and his mandate to school board members and superintendents across the state to bring education back to the basics and focus on student success. Indoctrination, whether it's critical race theory or sexually explicit materials has no place in Florida schools.
(25:43)
This governor has also led a revolution when it comes to school choice. The number of students attending a charter school is now at over 400,000. In 2025, nearly 70% of students attending a charter school are now attending an A graded charter school. And for school districts… Thank you. For school districts, as the governor highlighted, 28 districts earned an A compared to 22 last year, 31 earned a B compared to 26 last year. Duval County is one of those districts that improved from an A to a B, and it's the direct result of the leadership and the educators in this district. Right now, we're standing in one of those school success stories here at Oceanway Elementary School. Oceanway Elementary School earned a C last year, but I'm proud to say that Oceanway is now an A school in the 2025 school year. Florida's leading the way, and our students are benefiting from the visionary leadership of Governor DeSantis. When other states kowtowed to the woke mob, this governor stood up for what was right. He has supported families every step of the way, whether it's tax cuts in the budget, driving workforce education programs, expanding educational options for students, or pushing for educational reform in our public education system, this governor has fought for it all.
(27:19)
I fundamentally believe that his convictions are biblically driven, whether it's his vision of maintaining the innocence of our children or the old Proverb, "Trained them young in the way they should go so that even when they're old, they will not swerve from it." Time and time again, I'm reminded all of the tools that we are providing for our students with at a young age are going to ensure that they will grow into successful adults. Thank you, Governor, for your commitment to our students.
Charlotte Joyce (27:54):
Well, good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of the Duval County School Board, I'd like to welcome our wonderful governor and our commissioner to Oceanway Elementary as we celebrate this historic achievement. When I was elected in 2019 or 2018, my first year 2019, we had 20 D-F schools in our district. Fast-forward to last year, 23, 24, we brought that number down to 12, which is great. This year I am happy to announce that we have only two D schools in Duval County. And while two is too many, we have made significant progress in our academic outcomes for our kids in Duval County, and we expect that there will be zero next year. I would like to recognize Governor DeSantis for leading the way by creating a robust school choice environment in the state of Florida. These choices create competition and make our educational institutions better. I was in Washington, D.C. a couple of years ago for a conference, and I specifically remember a school board member from another state up north who was very frustrated, and she was complaining about the lack of choice in her district.
(29:20)
The students in her neighborhoods had to attend failing schools. They had to attend D and F schools. They had no other choice unless they took the money out and went to private school. At that time, I was just so grateful that I worked for a district, and I lived in a state where we had free education choices for our parents. One year ago, we hired, the school board hired unanimously Dr. Bernier to lead our district to oversee the management and the day-to-day operations. His strategic leadership in placing principals in our schools have made
Charlotte Joyce (30:00):
… made all the difference in the world this year. Culture and climate are so important in a school building and he has put the right leaders in the right places, and we have seen amazing outcomes because of those decisions. I also want to acknowledge and recommend the Dynamic Duo is what I call them, our chief of schools, Scott Schneider, and our chief academic officer, Paula Renfro. Ms. Renfro has made a concerted effort to align resources to state benchmarks and to ensure students have appropriate task and assignments to ensure a mastery of those benchmarks. I have enjoyed listening to Mr. Schneider present in our board meetings the instructional review process and how him and his team are in our classrooms every day to support our teachers, not to judge, not to critique, but to say, "What do you need? What is it that you need to help our teachers understand the benchmarks and deliver the instruction?"
(31:09)
So I want to just say thank you for that, your leadership there, Mr. Schneider, and also the Leadership Playbook that your team has put together this last year. You can't win the Super Bowl if you don't have a good game plan, and Mr. Schneider and his team has led the way in that game plan to improve student outcomes in Duval County. Finally, none of this would be possible without our teachers. They are the boots on the ground, they are the warriors in the classroom, they're in the trenches every day. Loving, nurturing, caring, and delivering the instruction. You can have a great commander-in-chief and you can have great generals, but you can't win the war if you don't have the troops in the trenches doing the work. And our teachers have done that and they have been fantastic for that. I also want to thank our parents for entrusting your children to us. Thank you so much. And we are going to continue to improve and we're going to continue to get better. And so please just continue to trust us. Number one, school safety. Number two, academic outcomes. And finally, as the chairman of the school board, not just the chairman of the school board, as a community member, as a parent, and as a grandparent, I am honored to stand up here with the historic news that for the first time in the history of Duval County, we have achieved a district grade of an A. Congratulations to everyone.
Delayna Simpson (33:00):
Good afternoon. Thank you all for being here today to celebrate this meaningful milestone for our school community. It is with great pride and gratitude that I shared the exciting news that Oceanway Elementary has officially moved from a letter grade C to an A. I want to begin by recognizing and thanking our incredible teachers here at Oceanway Elementary. This success doesn't happen by chance. It is a result of their dedication, passion, and daily commitment to helping every student reach their full potential. They show up each day with purpose, meeting students where they are and supporting them every step of the way. We know that each child is unique with their own strengths and challenges. More importantly, we see students as individuals, not just data points, but learners that are on their own path towards growth and success. By using targeted intervention interventions through our consistent progress monitoring, we ensure that every student receives the support that they need to thrive.
(34:21)
Our approach is intentional and responsive because real growth happens when we pay close attention to how students are doing and adapt our teaching to meet their needs. But this achievement is about more than academics. It reflects who we are. Oceanway is not just a school, it's a community. It's a community of dedicated educators, hardworking students, and supportive families all working together to create a culture of care and progress and high expectations for our students. This A is more than just a letter grade. It is a reflection of heart and effort and the belief in Oceanway Elementary. Thank you again to our teachers and staff, families and students, for making this moment possible. We accomplished this together and we are just getting started.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
[inaudible 00:35:26].
Antoine Smith (35:26):
Hello, my name is Antoine Smith and I'm going to be speaking for Oceanway. So this school was very… The motivation for me was the green and grow parties. In one tight scene, I can get in the green for the green and go parties. I wanted to do it all the time, get in the green so I could participate in all of them because we get to get game trucks, popsicles and stuff like that instead of being in the classroom. Also, my teachers were a big help for me with this. They got a relationship with us, they respected our boundaries, and they made the lesson fun while teaching, not just sitting up there, just telling us what to do. They made it fun so we can… And she engaged with us and we engaged with her. And also, PM1 and PM2, it was like a practice for me for the state test, and once I seen I could get an green on that, I always wanted to stay there.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (36:47):
Tell them where you going to school next.
Antoine Smith (36:54):
And my next chapter is James Weldon Johnson.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (37:05):
All right. Well, good deal on that. And congratulations to Duval County School District for receiving the A grade. Congratulations to the folks here at the elementary school for their good marks. I think the progress monitoring reform was the right reform to do. I think it is providing dividends, but I think we all say we still have more work to do, so let's get it done. Okay, thank you. Does anyone have any questions back there?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
First off, I know it's not on the topic of education, but do you know when the instruction would begin on [inaudible 00:37:39]?
Gov. Ron DeSantis (37:41):
So the division of emergency management closed the request for productions last week. I don't know if they've gone through and evaluated. I mean, all these projects are competitively bid, so they got to score the projects as they come in or the vendors. So eventually, I think vendors will be selected and then at that point, they would be able to do. Now, we're also going to see what the demand signal for this is. We did the Alligator Alcatraz and set that up last week. It was something that DHS, because people have been concerned, why aren't there more deportations? I know Kiyan wants to see more, right? I mean, it's like you have Biden led in how many millions and millions, just Biden, and we had many millions before that.
(38:24)
And so they're like, "Okay, why are…" And what DHS would tell us is, "Look, we don't have the manpower and the capacity to just be processing and have someone in a bed overnight or whatever before they can be deported." So they asked us for help on that. Now, we're the only state in the country that requires our state and local law enforcement to participate with immigration enforcement, and that's part of the reason why in any given day, the number of arrests of illegal aliens throughout the country, 15 to 20% are just Florida alone. So we're punching way above our weight class on that.
(39:04)
And so we said, "Okay, we'll help." And we have an ability with emergency management to move very quickly. I mean, you remember in Jacksonville when we had the Delta COVID, you remember COVID was 2020, then they had these MNRA shots, and a lot of people took them, and people said, "If you take it, COVID will be over." And yet you had a massive Delta wave in the summer of '21, even as all this stuff had been out. And so it was really going fast too. But we did have a treatment, these monoclonal antibodies, and so people were asking, and I'm like, "Yeah, I'll do it." So we set up clinics, we did the first one in Jacksonville. And we ended up sending up all over the state. That saved thousands of lives just by doing that and doing it very quickly. Can you imagine if this were California? Would've taken them six months to be able to do any of that.
(39:57)
So we move very quickly and we take pride in that. And so when we had the opportunity to do this, we said, "Listen, we'll do it if it's going to be something that is actually going to bear dividends. We don't want to do it just to do it." And so DHS basically approved it, so everything we're doing will be reimbursable by the federal government. And so people say, "Well, Florida should be spending." First of all, when you spend money for this, you save money because you take stress off hospitals, schools, criminal justice, all that. So I don't even want to… Enforcing the law ultimately will save money rather than just let lawlessness take over. But we're fronting it, but we are getting reimbursed in it. So we were able to stand it up in about a week. And so they did, I think the day or two after we opened it, when the president was there, they started bringing people.
(40:48)
And I can tell you the reports I've had, some of these people, these are really bad dudes, and I'm not one to say if you're here illegally, you have committed an offense. And I would do no amnesty for anybody. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying, "Oh, only if you commit serious crimes should you be deported." I think the law needs to be enforced. But the reality is, some of the people DHS is sending there, they have committed criminal misconduct and a lot of criminal misconduct that's probably not been even charged because they're just involved in some of this stuff. And so we need to make sure that they're removed from the country. So DHS is going to be doing that. And so what we want to know is, okay, what's the demand signal for it? We're happy to stand it up, but we want to make sure that it's being used to effectuate the removal of illegal aliens from the country.
(41:36)
That's why we're doing this. We're not doing it just for show. We're not doing it just for… It's can you do that? And if you do that, that will pay dividends for people here in the state of Florida. It'd be better for education and it'd be better for healthcare. It'd be better for all these things. Better for housing, quite frankly, particularly rental housing. And Kiyan knows all this because she's been working on this with us for years. So I think we'll be able to move very quickly if there's the demand signal for that. Now, on the emergency management front, we do have people en route. Our water rescue teams are en route to help Texas. Just as a dad, when you see that, that's a real, real heartbreaker and people are trying to politicize it. The reality is I think there were alarms or there were notices that went out at 1:00 AM. and 4:00 AM in the morning when people were sleeping.
(42:30)
I mean, it's like there's not an easy fix to that. It was a very freak thing. And so rather than cast blame and try to politicize it, I think we should all pool together and do what we can to help the people of Texas. Because Mother Nature, when it's just, especially the water, I mean, we see that in Florida with storm surge and stuff, it can be really, really nasty. And this was a biblical flood, it was much more than what I think they anticipated, but nevertheless, we're in that. Texas has helped us when we've had different issues throughout the years, and we're happy to step up. And we've helped Texas in the past too. I know we helped them in Harvey, some of the other things, but we are engaged in that with our resources. And if we can be helpful on that, then I think it'll be a good thing.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Hey, Governor, to that point about those funds that are supposed to be reimbursed with [inaudible 00:43:22], can you kind of explain how that's supposed to work?
Gov. Ron DeSantis (43:24):
How it would be on anything. So federal government reimburses us for stuff all the time. So for example, when we had Hurricane Milton, Biden was president then, he signed 100% reimbursement for debris and for emergency protective measures. And so all the debris stuff would be done by local governments, and then they would submit, and then they would get reimbursed 100%, and the state could get reimbursed if we're putting in it as well. So there's no different than how it's been. That will be something that will be done, and I think that's probably the most efficient way to do it. Now, I think they do have more money now in the agency, so we'll see what they're doing.
(44:04)
And part of the reason we've gotten so leaned in on this is because I just know that Biden really decimated ICE. He was telling people just come illegally like that. He was inviting people to come to this… So they were not serious about interior enforcement. So I knew that, and I knew that there were major gaps, and I knew there's no way you were going to be able to fulfill the mission if the states and locals just sat on their hands. So we're happy to do this. I think it's important to finally get this issue right.
(44:33)
The same time, if DHS is able to handle all this themselves, then fine. We don't need any credit for anything. We just want to get the job done. But yes, it'll be reimbursed just like we would do on any time we get reimbursed from the federal government. And people throw around how much [inaudible 00:44:52]. I don't know that those numbers are accurate because I think it depends on how many people end up being processed through and how long this stuff goes.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (45:00):
What we're doing is temporary. We're not going to make permanent sites on these locations. The place down in South Florida is this massive airport that's there in the Everglades. There's really, security-wise, it's totally foolproof, but massive slabs of concrete out there. And so they set up with temporary structures on that, and then they'll break them down and move when it's done. And same with Blanding. Blanding has more permanent structures that can be used for this, but the intent is not to commandeer that indefinitely. The intent is to help the mission, and if the feds have enough space in six months or a year, then great, and then we won't necessarily need to be doing it. But there is a need now, and we're not just going to sit on our hands. And if every state did what Florida's doing, if every state just did a fraction of what Florida's doing, you would see how much progress would be made very, very quickly. But we're not used to kind of being out in front of the pack when it comes to a lot of these issues. Yes.
Audience Member (46:06):
I just want to say what an honor it was to be in the press conference with you a few weeks ago for the property tax.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (46:15):
Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, that was good.
Audience Member (46:18):
That's something I…
Gov. Ron DeSantis (46:18):
That was on the west side, right? We were over there.
Audience Member (46:20):
[inaudible 00:46:20]
Gov. Ron DeSantis (46:20):
Yeah.
Audience Member (46:20):
Also, Governor DeSantis, just thank you so much for being such a caring governor and caring about our state of Florida.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (46:32):
Oh, sure.
Audience Member (46:33):
We live in a great country and just a great state.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (46:43):
So the property taxes, we're working very hard on this, and if I could just snap my fingers, I would do it. I got to work with the legislature and we got to get it to where, and then the voters ultimately have to approve it the way Florida's constitution's structured. But I don't think there's any way that the people that you've elected to the Florida legislature are going to be able to look at you in the eye after next session if they haven't put the property tax relief on the ballot for you to be able to adopt as voters. I think people want it. I think it's time. And so this is going to be a big thing for us as we go forward to be able to formulate something that is going to be compelling and that is also going to be workable. I mean, I look at some of these local governments, particularly like Southern Florida, I've seen how much their budgets have grown over the last five years and when their populations have not grown by that much or even close to that much. But why?
(47:44)
Because they got a gusher of revenue because the property values have gone up. The housing market, it goes up and down. I mean, when it goes up, it doesn't just stay going up indefinitely. There's corrections and all this stuff. And I think part of, with the interest rates remaining high, I think it's frozen some of these sales in place, but I think if interest rates get cut and interest rates drop, I think you're going to see more inventory turnover. I think you'll see prices probably go down. Interesting though, they never assess your property lower once they do it a certain amount, right? So if you end up seeing, yeah, your house has gone up a hundred percent in the past four years or something, if it then goes down 25% over the next few years, and I'm not predicting this, but I'm just saying I know things are cyclical, they're not going to all of a sudden downgrade you by 25% and give you a break. No, you're kind of locked into that tax basis, and that's really tough for a lot of people.
(48:41)
But they got this gusher of revenue, and so they did that. So I think that there's going to be ways, but one of the things we got in the budget, and I want to thank particularly Ben Albritton, the president of Florida Senate for supporting this, we have now legal authority to DOGE all local governments. And so we have done that on the universities, things that we have control over, and then we have allowed local governments to volunteer to be DOGE. But the problem is the ones that most need to be DOGE are not going to volunteer to be DOGE, and so we've had to walk that. But now that we have the authority in there, you're going to see the ability of our guys as well as chief financial officer set to go in there and really be able to demonstrate, I think, some of the inefficiencies.
(49:34)
And so it'll just be the situation where it's one thing to say you pay tax for law enforcement or this, but there's going to be a lot more bloat that people are going to be able to see, and I think they're going to be able to make some very, very good decisions for themselves and their families if given the opportunity. So the DOGE authority is now in law. We're already working this week on doing that. And we have had some cooperation from a number of counties throughout the state of Florida, but not the ones that I think really need it more than ever. And so the thing is, local government, it's an interesting beast, I can tell you. I watch some of this and I'm just like, man, I'm glad I don't have to deal with that. So that's going to be coming, but I think that goes hat in hand with all this stuff. And then we're also work on the state level because when they tax your property, they're not sending it to us in Tallahassee.
(50:26)
I announced last week, I think, that Florida, since I've been governor, we've more than tripled the state's rainy day fund. So we've now, after I signed the budget, our rainy day fund is maxed out. We're not allowed to put any more money in under our constitution because we've reached the limit of how much rainy day fund you can have, which, honestly, there should be a limit because you don't want to just stockpile endless amounts of cash. You can cut people's taxes or do that, but people are like, "Why do you have a rainy day fund if we're having property tax?" Your property tax revenue doesn't go to the state for a rainy day or any of that other stuff. That is surpluses that have been generated largely by sales taxes, doc stamp taxes, other types of things that the state of Florida does, not income taxes, of course, we don't have. And we just eliminated business rent tax, so that'll be gone over the next two years, I think they're phasing it out, which is the elimination of estate tax, and yet we're still having strong revenue.
(51:27)
So the property stuff is not going to fund our surplus, but we are going to be able to provide some support for localities, particularly in the initial years, and especially our rural counties. I'm fine doing that. I think that'll be easy to do. So this is all going to come to a head. We're going to work really, really hard on it. And we'll be probably going around the state doing some stuff to solicit more input from our citizens. But you know my view on all this, I've been saying it pretty much the last few months as we started debating taxes, I don't want to cut taxes for Canadian tourists. I want to cut taxes, property taxes, for Florida residents. That's what I want to do. That's where we should focus there. And final thing I'll say is I've been getting asked about this idea of this Elon Musk political party, and I just want to say I think Elon Musk has been one of the most innovative entrepreneurs, not just in our country's history, but probably in world history, and I think he's done a lot.
(52:36)
I think he's got a lot more left in the tank, obviously. I appreciated him, his efforts in the 2024 election, and I've been a big supporter of the idea of the DOGE because the federal government's spending way too much money. We've adopted that in Florida even though we have a budget surplus and are paying down debt, and we have the second lowest spending per capita of all 50 states, but yet we're still doing it in Florida because you always want to do better. But when Elon was at DOGE, there were grants that had been done that we rejected in Florida, we would call Elon. They would cancel it immediately. We sent over almost a billion dollars to where they were able to recover. There were DEI, there was stuff we're not doing, and so there was a lot that was done that was very, very positive. And so I think I've been a big fan of what he's done.
(53:25)
The problem is when you do another party, especially if you're running on some of the issues that he talks about, that would end up, if he funds Senate candidates and house candidates and competitive races, that would likely end up meaning the Democrats would win all the competitive Senate and house races. And so look, I'm a Republican. I don't want to see that happen. I think if you want to get involved and hold accountable, we do have a problem in the Republican party with these DC Congressmen. They always run saying there's out of control spending and they're going to spend less and they never do it. And so there's a gap between the campaign rhetoric and then the performance. Elon was doing DOGE and a lot of Congress didn't want anything to do with actually adopting the DOGE cuts, just like they haven't wanted to adopt the Trump executive orders on immigration and all these other things, which I think you have to adopt in law if you want them to have staying power.
(54:23)
So I think there is a lot of frustration with the gap between the rhetoric and their district and the performance once they get into DC. But the way you do that is expose that in a primary and show that there's another way forward. Honestly, if you're concerned about the debt, I wouldn't even worry about that because I don't think just electing a few better people is going to change their trajectory. We need the incentives in Washington are going to lead to these outcomes really regardless of the outcome of elections at this point. So you need to do a balanced budget amendment to the U.S constitution, and you can do that through the states, you can do it through Article Five. We've got 28 states that have approved this. There's another four or five that are on the docket. Once you hit 34, then you write an amendment and then the states are able to ratify that. You need three quarters. If Elon wanted to weigh in on that and work on those state ledgers, he would have a monumental impact on doing this.
(55:24)
And we also need term limits for members of Congress. And so you can do both of those things. But I think if you did that, all of a sudden that moves the needle on both of those issues, under Article five of the Constitution, you are going to see major, major positive changes, but you have to change the incentives and the structures up there because we've seen it time and time again, you have the rhetoric, same results, you have the rhetoric, same results when it comes to debt, and so this is one way to do it. And it's within our grasp to do it. Florida's already certified both of those. Term limits has really gained a lot of steam over the last couple of years. There was only one or two states that had done it like five or six years ago, now you've got a lot more. Balanced budget amendment has been out there for a long time. A lot of people have wanted to do it. That's very close.
(56:15)
And if you do those things, then I think you actually have a chance to really change Congress. But as it is now, even if somehow a third party could elect some people that were so-called fiscal conservative, I don't think it would even move the needle even if they got elected. And we know that they wouldn't get elected because it's really one or two parties. So you're either just taking votes away from one side or the other is really how it ends up doing. So I'm a believer in trying to work this stuff out through the Republican process rather than do that. But I think even more than that, doing these amendments, which are within our grasp, it doesn't require Congress, you can do it through Article five and do it through the states, that would have a huge impact on the trajectory of the country.
(56:59)
In the late nineties, they were one vote away in the U.S senate from passing a balanced budget amendment. It would've had to have been ratified by the states, but I think it would've been at the time. Now we had a budget surplus federally at the time. Just imagine how different our fiscal trajectory would be right now had that balanced budget amendment passed 26, 27 years ago. I mean, we wouldn't be having some of these debates about all the mounting debt. And so we were very close to doing it. And I think because we were in pretty good fiscal shape, I think people just said it was better to not, the swing votes, "Well, why tie hands? Things are going well." But had they done that, man, we would be in really good shape. So let's do a balanced budget amendment, tie the hands of the big spenders, term limit them so they can't ensconce themselves in office for decades like Nancy Pelosi.
(57:56)
I don't know why. I mean, if she were to run a hedge fund with her stock trades, I mean, man, she would make a lot of money. So why don't we do that? That is achievable. And especially, I mean, if somebody as significant as Elon wants to get in the game on that, he will have a, I think, very consequential impact on that, and I think would be just the type that could bring this across the finish line. And wouldn't we want to see these guys have some limits on how much damage that they can do? So I think Washington needs to be overall the hundred percent, I just don't think a third party's going to do it. But I do think these amendments can make a big, big difference. Okay. Thanks everyone. God bless.