Though Florida school board elections are officially nonpartisan, support and endorsements from the two major political parties and funding from partisan sources tell a different story. And in Duval, where there are four hotly contested seats up for grabs, that funding is huge. Which brings us to this week’s number:

Nine candidates are running for four seats on the Duval County School Board, and together they’ve raised $452,290.41. (For context, in 2018, the 17 School Board candidates together raised about $500,000, making the per-candidate haul much chunkier this time around.)

As we’ve increasingly seen over the past five years, candidates’ donations dwarf the School Board races of a decade earlier. In 2016, District 7 representative Lori Hershey won her first term having raised $11,828. Eight years later, Hershey is term-limited, and the two candidates competing to replace her have raised a combined total of more than $100,000. And in 2022, each candidate running for the District 2 seat — then-incumbent Elizabeth Andersen and challenger April Carney, who won the race — raised more than $100,000.

On the surface, this year’s set of candidates have raised most of their money from individual contributions.

Note that individuals might also be donating through their business and also donating to political action committees, PACs, which can support candidates separately from official campaigns.

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In Florida, school board races have become both heavily partisan and heavily influenced by PACs. The state’s election laws limit individuals and organizations to donations of $1,000 per candidate per election, but PACs can spend money in support of their favored candidates without limit. 

Sometimes, PACs are community groups or organizations that pool small donations from lots of people who feel strongly about causes. Think labor unions that collect money from their members and then donate to candidates through a PAC.

But, PACs can also funnel large donations from businesses, nonprofit organizations and political parties, sometimes from the national level, all the way down toward local candidates. Way, way more money than contribution limits would otherwise allow. 

How the chart works: Flip through to see the money that’s flowed through PACs to candidates in all of the School Board races, followed by each of the four races individually. Click on a line to view details about a PAC, many of which include links.

These charts represent only the fraction of the PAC money flowing in to influence the outcome of the Duval School Board races. While PACs must file reports detailing donations they receive and generally how they spend their money, they are not required to specify which candidates benefit from their spending. So, while we can see which PACs donate directly to which candidates, it’s harder to track their separate activities in support of (or against) candidates.

Sometimes circumstantial details help piece together the puzzle — as in the case of the postcards a local PAC sent this summer disparaging District 3 incumbent Cindy Pearson. But, there’s no master list of everything PACs do — and therefore no way to fully know how much money is spent on elections.

*Total is as of Friday, Aug. 16. Actual numbers raised may be higher, with new campaign finance reports due by Saturday, Aug. 17.