This post was originally published on April 3, 2024. The publication date is when it was last updated.
During the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers passed a measure (HB 1) making school vouchers available to all students eligible for K-12 public schools through the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program (FTC) and the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options Program (FES-EO). Vouchers are now also available[1] for up to 20,000 home-schooled students through the FTC this school year, called the Personalized Education Program. For students with disabilities, vouchers remain available through the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Unique Abilities Program (FES-UA), though for these students, there is an enrollment cap, which was a focus of last fall’s special session.
The state’s expansion of the existing voucher program through HB 1 was massively ambitious and issues with implementation quickly became evident. Floridians called into question expenditures of education savings accounts when it was revealed that funds were being used for theme park tickets, paddleboards, and large screen TVs; additionally, some private schools stated that they were not receiving tuition payments in a timely manner. Florida Policy Institute and its partners called on the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) to share data on the number and characteristics of students receiving vouchers, including the income levels of students receiving vouchers and whether students had previously been in public schools. The groups also called for transparency in the amount of funding and the sources being used to fund the universal voucher program. Under HB 1, FLDOE is required to collect data on vouchers and fund an evaluation.
This session, legislation — HB 1403 — was proposed to bring greater transparency and accountability to voucher expenditures; to increase the numeric cap for students with disabilities from 3 percent to 5 percent of exceptional education students; and to shore up processes to ensure timely payments to schools and parents. The original bill restricted voucher purchases to the expenses directly related to core curriculum areas of reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. However, in the eleventh hour, after the bill passed with these restrictions in all of its House committees and in two Senate committees, the bill was amended and the restriction was removed.
The legislation would also expand the number of data elements FLDOE is required to collect from scholarship funding organizations.[2] Under current statutes,[3] the state is required to collect student demographics, disability categories, award amounts, and authorized expenditures. Under HB 1403, the state would also be required to collect data on the timeliness of processing applications and reimbursements, and it would require the state to seek parent and school input regarding the voucher program.
The original bill restricted voucher purchases to the expenses directly related to core curriculum areas of reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. However, in the eleventh hour, after the bill passed with these restrictions in all of its House committees and in two Senate committees, the bill was amended and the restriction was removed.
Accountability and transparency are much needed in the voucher program, and this bill would do little to improve that situation. The most recent data on voucher students available, which was provided by Step Up for Students, a scholarship funding organization, was from back in September 2023. Quarterly reports on the FTC have not been posted since June 2023 and outcome reports on FES have historically lagged by two school years. Data on the number of students served can be gleaned from staff analyses for HB 1 and HB 1403, data forecasts from the Office of Economic and Demographic Research, and the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) calculations. Yet, this data does not provide student demographic characteristics, whether students previously went to public schools, family income, or diagnostic categories of students receiving vouchers. (See Table 1.)
It is harder to identify the total expenditures for vouchers because there are different pots of money captured in different sources. In the current-year budget for fiscal year 2023-2024, $2.1 billion was appropriated for vouchers, which is reflected in the FEFP calculations. There are also expenditures from the State-Funded Discretionary Supplement ($436.1 million), allocated to offset large changes in enrollment districts and expenditures, as well as the Educational Enrollment Stabilization Fund allocated in the back of the budget ($350 million). The latter are also reflected in the FEFP calculations. In addition to the $1.1 billion approved for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarships, the scholarship funding organizations, Step Up for Students and AAA Scholarship Foundation, are allowed to carry forward up to 25 percent of funds year to year, which is reflected in the Scholarship Outlook Statement.
Still, just because the student totals and expenditure data are reported somewhere, it does not make it accessible and transparent to Floridians to see where their school tax dollars are going. The bill passed by the Legislature, HB 1403, would not fix that. The measure, like current law promulgated by 2023’s HB 1, would require the Department of Education to publish and update “relevant data” about vouchers on its website.[4] However, the available data on student characteristics is not current. FPI and its partners asked for this data in September 2023. FPI, its partners, and Florida taxpayers are still waiting.
Notes
[1] Fla. Stat. 1002.394 and 1002.395
[2] Lines 294-308 in the bill sponsor’s amendment to HB 1403, https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/1403/Amendment/203782/PDF.
[3] Fla. Stat. 1002.394 and 1002.395
[4] Line 552 in HB 1403, https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/1403.
