Florida\u2019s $4 billion universal school choice industry has experienced explosive growth but left an education system ripe for abuse<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOn any given day of the week, the (Florida) Department of Education (FDOE<\/a>) can\u2019t find 30,000 students we\u2019re paying for,\u201d Sen. Don Gaetz<\/a>, the SB 318 co-sponsor, said on the Senate floor. \u201cThat\u2019s $270 million we\u2019re paying for students we can\u2019t locate. The Auditor General criticizes our funding model as \u2018pay and chase,\u2019 and they don\u2019t mean it as a compliment.\u201d<\/p>\n SB 318, approved late Wednesday, would make sweeping changes, including creating a separate category for the Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES<\/a>) so it would no longer be mixed into the state\u2019s K-12 funding formula calculation.<\/p>\n SB 318 also would expand the education stabilization fund to $250 million so that if more students leave traditional public schools than expected, they can still get fully funded vouchers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Democrats told Gaetz they wished his bill could have helped public school districts facing declining enrollment and big funding losses as the voucher program has grown to more than 500,000 students. Gaetz told lawmakers he was trying to get a stabilization fund provision in a conforming bill to help buffer public schools and give them a declining enrollment subsidy. <\/p>\n The bill also would reduce scholarship administrative fees from 3% to 2% to fund more scholarships through the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program.<\/p>\n Other changes would streamline the process, including requiring one single application for all scholarship programs and ordering the necessary documentation, like a child\u2019s birth certificate, be submitted when the application is turned in.<\/p>\n To improve transparency, the child\u2019s guardian would need to attest that the student is not enrolled in a public school and say where the child is educated. A private school can speak out in some cases on behalf of the parent.<\/p>\n Going forward, the FDOE would be required to assign a Florida student ID for all voucher recipients to process their scholarship information to make sure the families receive the taxpayer funds.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of hard to keep track of hundreds of thousands of students if we don\u2019t know who they are and where they are, but by giving every student a number, that is a first step,\u201d Gaetz said.<\/p>\n FDOE would also be required to create a standard withdrawal form when voucher students leave the traditional public school system.<\/p>\n \u201cFraudsters, unfortunately, have discovered our school choice program, and they spammed millions of dollars by creating fictitious students \u2014 not Minnesota, but not a good look,\u201d Gaetz said. \u201cSo this bill provides that each provider will receive funding for students only if, and after, they are confirmed as being actually enrolled.\u201d<\/p>\n The bill also would stop the practice of organizations, like Step Up For Students<\/a>, keeping large sums of taxpayer money in their own accounts, Gaetz added.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, the Department of Education advanced $600 million to the school funding organizations even before the parents made their school choices. And then the Department chased the money to find if the dollars wound up in the right place for the right students, and the result is that public schools were shortchanged by $100 million for students they served, but the money was sent someplace else,\u201d said Gaetz, a former Superintendent of Schools for Okaloosa County.<\/p>\n The FDOE would also reexamine how it works with those organizations and create a business plan to become more competitive and create contracts with performance requirements.<\/p>\n \u201cIf this bill passes, the Department of Education will no longer work with a scholarship funding organization in the way that we have done in the past,\u201d Gaetz said. \u201cRight now, there is performance, but there are not always performance requirements. And as a consequence, there has been some ragged performance, candidly.\u201d<\/p>\n The bill also addresses problems parents are experiencing, Gaetz said.<\/p>\n For instance, some parents homeschooling their children wait months to get reimbursed for materials and services.\u00a0<\/p>\n His bill \u201creduces red tape and reduces long waits for payments,\u201d Gaetz said. \u201cOur bill asks families to help us help them by confirming monthly with a simple checkoff where their student is attending school so that the right amount can be disbursed to the right place and private schools can do that on parents\u2019 behalf in this bill.\u201d<\/p>\n After a scathing report, the Auditor General would audit the FDOE and the nonprofits issuing the vouchers, like Step Up, every year going forward under the bill\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n \u201cTo all of us who believe in parental choice and education as I do, the Auditor General\u2019s report was tough medicine,\u201d Gaetz said. \u201cTo disregard the Auditor General\u2019s findings and warnings and recommendations and just let things roll on as they are, would be legislative malpractice.<\/p>\n Democrat Sen. Shevrin Jones<\/a> praised Gaetz\u2019s bill but warned more legislation is needed in future bills to add more oversight to private schools. Some of these private schools, now getting public dollars, are not good learning environments or properly teaching students, he said.<\/p>\n Gaetz joked it was the first-ever \u201ctripartisan\u201d bill to be heard on the Senate floor since the legislation was also co-sponsored by Republicans Sens. Corey Simon<\/a> and Danny Burgess<\/a>, Democratic Sens. Rosalind Osgood<\/a> and Darryl Rouson<\/a>, and Sen. Jason Pizzo<\/a>, who is independent.<\/p>\n Orange County Public Schools, the fourth-largest school district in the state, welcomed the bill\u2019s passage in the Senate. The district is planning to close seven schools<\/a> as it faces a financial crisis from a student enrollment dip.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20-MHD-Florida-Politics-V1_1-728x90-1.png\")
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