The Senate’s plan to address the school choice voucher system’s shortfalls was made public Friday.
“A myriad of accountability problems” went on display this week when two legislative committees reacted to an independent audit showing “funding did not follow the child” to private schools or homeschool. Now, Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Crestview, has put out his chamber’s plan, co-sponsored by the chairs of both Senate education committees.
In the nearly 150-page bill, SB 318, Gaetz, a former school district superintendent, touches concerns raised by school districts, parents, private schools, and scholarship funding organizations.
“As the Auditor General has made clear, the architecture of our current funding system has scrambled together the funds for public schools, private schools, home schooling and unique ability scholarships and then the Department and the Scholarship Funding Organizations have to unscramble upwards of $4 billion and send the right amounts to the right places for the right students at the right times. No wonder there are problems,” the Senate president’s office said in releasing Gaetz’s bill.
The bill establishes:
- A categorical fund for the scholarship programs as opposed to the existing practice of lumping those funds together with all school funding;
- Requires a minimum of $250 million in a fund that offsets unexpected budgetary costs related to school choice scholarships;
- And “clears up the timing confusion in the present system and establishes clear application and scholarship acceptance deadlines that occur prior to the funding of scholarships,” according to the Senate president’s office.
Additionally, the bill would provide the state access to scholarship funding organizations’ databases. After each verification of student locations, the list of students must be provided to the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the chair of the House Budget Committee, and the office of the governor.
Gaetz served as Senate president from 2012 through 2014.
The Senate plan would require the Department of Education to investigate written complaints from parents, students, and schools regarding school choice laws and investigate fraudulent activity and overpayment, and refer them to the Department of Financial Services for potential criminal investigation.
Private schools that do not properly attest that a child attends their school could be investigated for fraud and would have to repay the funds, according to the bill.
During a committee meeting this week, Gaetz acknowledged his bill is not “perfect,” but said it fixes “issues, which, left unaddressed, will continue to worsen and threaten to disrupt and imperil school choice in Florida.”
The department would be required to develop a uniform reimbursement and invoicing process and create stricter application windows for scholarships, addressing a concern Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Palm City, among several other representatives, shared last month.
The bill would requires all students including those attending private schools, to be tracked with Florida Education Identifier numbers, unique to each student, to better check the location of students, a focal point for Reps. John Snyder, R-Stuart, and Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota. Under the existing model, not all non-public school students were being tracked with those numbers, making verification of student information a heavier lift.
The Phoenix reported this week the House and Senate, while both acknowledging the problems with the program, are not entirely on the same page, particularly whether to separate the school choice programs from the school funding model.
–Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix
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