The Florida Senate

228.0857  Regional consortium service organizations.--

(1)  It is the intent of the Legislature that the delivery of educational programs and services in the state be improved through the creation of regional consortium service organizations designed to stimulate cooperation between school districts in order that resources of one school district may be available to other school districts. It is further the legislative intent that such organizations provide a full range of programs to larger numbers of students, minimize duplication of services, and encourage the development of new programs and services.

(2)  School districts with 20,000 or fewer unweighted full-time equivalent students may enter into cooperative agreements to form a regional consortium service organization. Each regional consortium service organization shall provide, at a minimum, three of the following services: exceptional student education; teacher education centers; environmental education; federal grant procurement and coordination; data processing; health insurance; risk management insurance; staff development; purchasing; and planning and accountability.

(3)(a)  Each regional consortium service organization which consists of four or more school districts is eligible to receive, through the Department of Education, an incentive grant of $25,000 per school district to be used for the delivery of services within the participating school districts.

(b)  Application for incentive grants shall be made to the Commissioner of Education by July 30 of each year for distribution to qualifying regional consortium service organizations by January 1 of the fiscal year.

History.--s. 1, ch. 93-145.