DeSantis Runs Scared - Backpedals On Threats To Withold Salaries of School Officials

[jth...@gmail.com]

Aparently he got a rub and tug from Trump last night and he's relaxed now.


What do you expect? He's a fucking Lawyer. Lawyers are as bright as a
piece of dogshit under the sun. That's why they're for hire, like
whores.




DeSantis backpedals on threat to withhold salaries of defiant school
officials

By ANDREW ATTERBURY

08/12/2021 06:15 PM EDT


TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration backed down from its
threat to withhold school officials’ salaries if they resist his anti-mask
rule, saying instead that the defiant officials should be responsible for
the “consequences of their decisions.”

The move by the governor’s office represents a tacit acknowledgement that
it legally can’t take away the salaries of school board members and others
despite previously threatening to. DeSantis could levy hundreds of
thousands of dollars in fines against school districts for disobeying his
mask orders, but it would be up for the board leaders themselves to cut
their own pay.

“The entire school district community shouldn’t suffer just because a few
activist, anti-science school board members want to impose overreaching
mandates on every student,” said DeSantis spokesperson Christina Pushaw in
a statement to POLITICO.

In her statement, Pushaw said the education officials in question “are not
on the state payroll, so this form of penalty is the most narrowly
tailored approach that the state can take.”

The Miami Herald was first to report that the DeSantis administration was
tempering its threat.

DeSantis and local school board members have been squabbling over mask
rules in recent weeks as campuses across Florida began welcoming students
for the fall semester. The Republican governor opposes blanket mask
mandates for students despite the Delta variant of Covid-19 that is
sweeping the state, and threatened to take away funding from districts as
well as salaries of officials. Several districts, including Broward County
— the second largest school district in the state — stated they would push
forward with mask mandates for all students regardless of the
consequences.
DeSantis insists Florida will have a 'normal school year', despite Covid
surge

The fight over masks in schools has even drawn in the White House and
President Joe Biden, with his administration attacking DeSantis almost
daily for the GOP governor’s hands-off approach to the surging virus.

Thursday’s admission marks the second retrenchment by DeSantis, who
initially touted the mask ban as a hard-and-fast rule, only to later
acknowledge that schools could require masks and that parents would then
have to opt out.

Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democrat running for governor
against DeSantis, said the governor’s efforts against local school mask
mandates is “unconstitutional and unconscionable.” Fried recently sparred
on Twitter with Pushaw over the threat of schools losing state funding
over mask policies.

Pushaw claimed Fried was pushing “disinformation” and that schools
wouldn't be defunded. Yet the acknowledgement from DeSantis administration
on Thursday indicates that while the state could pull funding equal to the
salaries of board members, it can’t directly strip their pay.

"It's like he's over there screaming 'ready, fire, aim!' at whatever
divisive partisan squirrel of an idea he hears on Fox News,” Fried said
Thursday.

Most school districts in Florida have made masks optional for students, or
they are permitted to opt-out of wearing the face coverings with a simple
parent form. But school leaders in Alachua and Broward counties currently
have policies in violation of Florida’s emergency rules against mask
mandates.

In both cases, Florida’s Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran is
threatening to unleash the “maximum” penalties possible. That hardline
caused Leon County to walk back its rule requiring students to provide
clearance from a medical professional to opt out of wearing a mask.

Alachua’s school board is sticking with its mask policy in the face of the
threats from the Department of Education. The school board asked the
DeSantis administration to "consider the appropriateness" of withholding
hundreds of thousands of dollars from the district.

“Neither the Florida Department of Education nor the Board of Education
control the payroll distribution of school districts,” Alachua school
leaders wrote in a letter Tuesday.

Broward County's board, which enacted a full blown mask mandate for all
students, has until Friday to respond to the Department of Education.

DeSantis' push to block local school mask mandates is facing numerous
lawsuits, including one that was filed by parents and is scheduled to be
heard Friday in circuit court.

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[jth...@gmail.com]

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