It's pretty hot outside during the summer months in Florida, but this summer, some of that Sunshine State heat is being felt on commercials surrounding the race for governor. 

With money pouring into the campaign coffers, candidates are getting their messaging out to the voters on a fairly regular basis.

Recently, the Republican Party of Florida released a Spanish-language commercial in support of the incumbent, Governor Rick Scott [R].  In the ad, the RPOF touts Scott's education record and the money that he's allocated to education during the last four years.  One of the points the ad made was about preschool education funding.  Here's what was said by a teacher in the ad:

"With Rick Scott, there are more funds for preschool education and that’s very important to me. Florida students are better off due to Scott. They can repeat all the falsehoods they want, the facts don’t lie."

Our partners at PolitiFact decided to find out if the claim about preschool education funds was accurate.  PolitiFact reporter Joshua Gillin says that the RPOF's claim rates MOSTLY FALSE on the Truth-O-meter.  As Gillin explains, the problem comes from the numbers and how they are interpreted.

"What we're talking about here is the voluntary pre-kindergarten program, and at first glance, the numbers cited by the RPOF seem in line with their statement," said Gillin.  "Taking a look at the numbers, you would see that in Charlie Crist's last year as Governor, his appropriations were listed as $404 million.  Keep in mind that $73 million of that $404 million was federal stimulus dollars.  Under Rick Scott, he had appropriations of $385 million, $413 million, $405 million, and $396 million this year.  So you look at that and say 'Well, Scott allocated $413 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2012-13, and that's more than Crist's $404 million, so case closed.'  However, that's not really the case."

The problem, as Gillin explains it, is that a very different story emerges when you look at per-pupil spending, which is the amount of dollars that would be theoretically allocated to any one child.  "For Crist's last term, that number was $2562 per pupil," said Gillin.  "Lookjing at the per-pupil numbers under Rick Scott, his per-pupil numbers were $2,383 for three consecutive years, and then $2437 for FY 2014-15.  All of those numbers are below Crist's per-pupil number during his last year as Governor."

Gillin says that the RPOF claim has a bit of truth in it, namely the raw amount of money that was allocated.  However, the per-pupil numbers did not support the RPOF's claim, which results in a MOSTLY FALSE rating from PolitiFact.

 

SOURCES: PRESCHOOL EDUCATION FUNDING