As Florida begins to release $60 million to address funding mistakes that hit families and schools in the vouchers system last year, lawmakers are continuing to scrutinize how the money is accounted for.
At a key subcomittee hearing in the Florida House, legislators grilled voucher funding executives and one state education department director in search of answers on how to avoid another multi-million-dollar crisis as the popular school choice program expands.
They addressed a major accounting issue: inaccurate student tracking.
Almost 24,000 Florida students had their funds frozen last school year because they were identified as being recipients of vouchers and enrolled in public school. Of those, about 80% were on the type of voucher meant for students with disabilities, the Unique Abilities scholarship.
Frozen funds cause financial and emotional hardships for students and families that depend on the voucher. Earlier this year, WLRN looked into the effects delayed voucher payments have had on private schools and families.
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At the latest of a number of hearings last week, lawmakers on the PreK-12 budget subcommittee grilled executives from the funding organizations and Adam Emerson, executive director of the Office of School Choice.
Republican Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, who chairs the subcommittee, said she hoped they could "explore ways to improve the implementation and administration of our state scholarship programs to ensure that what happened in fiscal year 24-25 is not repeated going forward."
So far the Florida education department has released nearly $17 million the of what was owed to families through funding organizations.
A big bet
The state took a big bet when it expanded its voucher program to make it easier for parents to opt for school choice — or exercise education freedom, as proponents say. State lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis passed the landmark law HB1 in 2023 to expand access to school vouchers, opening the floodgates for any child to use public money for private schooling.
Not enough guardrails were implemented at the time of the bill's passing to ensure students received the voucher, also known as scholarships, Senator. Don Gaetz told WLRN.
Today, more than half a million students use state vouchers, nearly double what it was two years ago.
Vouchers, also known as scholarships, are funded through nonprofits Step Up For Students — which manages half a million vouchers — and AAA.
"The single most amount of calls that we now receive in my office is about Step Up funds," said Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Stuart.
"How do we fix this problem? Because we keep going around," said Republican Rep. Alex Rizo, from Hialeah, who is also on the subcommittee. "Blame is one thing, but let's fix the problem. We're out millions of dollars. Schools and parents and students are getting frustrated — we're all getting frustrated."
Unique ID numbers
Legislators were seemingly surprised to hear that part of the issue with tracking students is that not every one has a unique ID number, as required by Florida law, making it harder to track applications.
Persons-Mulicka said millions have been released to about 85% of students missing funds from last year, as the organizations and state work together to identify students to "backpay," as described by Emerson and the executives.
The toll has also been sizable for school districts. The Legislature advanced $47 million to make them whole for last year's deficits.
Money would begin being funneled to affected districts this week, including to Broward County with $5.3 million and Miami-Dade County with $6.8 million.
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