Fort Myers Beach Manager says school district offering no funds for school
Town of Fort Myers Beach Manager Will McKannay, who has been locked in negotiations with the School District of Lee County over the future of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School, said the district’s leadership is still offering no funds to help the town repair or rebuild the historic elementary school five months after a conflict resolution meeting between the town council and school district leaders.
McKannay has been negotiating behind closed doors with the district’s administration since a public mediation session in November between town and school district leaders ended with Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers proposed that the district give the town the school property and $12 million so that the town could start a charter school.
“I don’t think there is going to be money coming to the town to help with the rebuild (for the elementary school),” McKannay said on Thursday. “The school district, in my opinion, has decided it’s not in the best interests of the district as a whole to do that. Money has been used for other projects in the district.”
McKannay said there are discussions with administrators about a compromise where the school district would deed the school properties to the town and some “in-kind monetary” funds to give the school district “what we need to start the school up again.”
McKannay said that once that is achieved, he and the town council can go to the public and discuss “how we intend on making that happen as a town school.”
If the town goes down a public charter school route, which is what Allers has proposed, new tax funds will need to be raised as most of the funds paid by town taxpayers into the school district would continue to go into the scholl district’s coffers regardless of whether there is a charter school, public school or no school.
School District of Lee County spokesman Rob Spicker said the administration was again declining comment on the negotations and how funds from the state and FEMA earmarked for the school have been used since Hurricane Ian..
“We continue to honor the conflict resolution process and will not be making statements outside of our communications with the Town of Fort Myers Beach or public meetings,” Spicker said.
Allers has previously stated he believes the school district redirected funds meant for the elementary school. During November’s mediation session, Allers began asking questions about state and FEMA funds the district received for the school after Hurricane Ian, but was asked by the mediator to not delve into those issues.
School district officials have given different calculations as to how much was spent on the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School after Hurricane Ian. District officials long held that $6 million was spent on reopening the school after Hurricane Ian though that has since been revised to $8.1 million.
According to Spicker, the school district was awarded a loan of approximately $55 million through a state loan program after Hurricane Ian for all of the district’s schools. FEMA’s current obligated amount for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School is $12.6 million, which the district said will be used to pay back the loan, Spicker said.
That would appear to leave a difference of about $4.5 million between what was spent by the school district on the elementary school after Hurricane Ian and what was awarded through FEMA.
Allers had pointed to an award letter from FEMA of $18 million that was meant to cover more extensive work, though the district maintains that it didn’t ultimately receive all of those funds.
The Fort Myers Beach Elementary School has been closed since 2024, after flooding after Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene. According to Spicker, the school district spent $1.1 million on the school since Hurricane and $33,725 for damage from Hurricane Helene. Spicker said the district is still in the process of finalizing its claim with FEMA.
Those funds do not cover what it would take to reopen the school. The school district has given varying estimates on the cost of repairs to re-open the elementary school, from $1.3 million to upwards of $10 million.
The town and school district entered into an interlocal agreement in 2023 whereby the school district agreed to rebuild the elementary school, which it did in December of that year. The agreement also required the school district to build a cafeteria building at an estimated cost of $6 million by the end of 2025, which it never did.
Last year, Superintendent Dr. Denis Carlin ordered a consultant on a multi-million dollar, multi-year contract with the school district, to undertake a review of the elementary school. The review, which was lambasted by school district parents and the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce for inaccurate figures and assumptions, recommended the school district close the school. Among those assumptions were higher costs for the repair of the elementary school based on estimates from a South Florida based consultant than the district had initially estimated through its own local, internal construction consultants.
After the town voted to begin the conflict resolution process last fall, the school board voted to forward to the state plans to raze the historical campus. The state gave the first set of approvals to start the process. The multi-layered process would be extensive and would require approvals from town, county, state and federal authorities. The Fort Myers Beach Elementary School dates back to the 1940’s and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The school district had a $2.9 billion budget in the 2025-26 school year.
Fort Myers Beach Elementary School students have been attending classes at Heights Elementary since last year. A current budget for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School was not immediately available from the school district. According to Spicker, there were 41 students attending classes there as of October. Before Hurricane Milton, the school district had approximately 70 students. There were approximately 80 students attending classes there before Hurricane Ian.
The budget for the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School at the start of the 2024-25 school year before Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton hit was $1.53 million. Despite students now attending Heights Elementary School and parents maintaining that costs have been significantly reduced for the school, the school district’s budget still has the school budget listed as not much less at $1.47 million. The school has long had the smallest operating budget of any school in the School District of Lee County.