{"id":16713,"date":"2025-10-23T04:16:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T04:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/16713\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T04:16:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T04:16:13","slug":"rapid-expansion-of-voucher-program-leaves-schools-underpaid-tallahassee-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/16713\/","title":{"rendered":"Rapid Expansion of Voucher Program Leaves Schools Underpaid \u2013 Tallahassee Reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fb-share-icon\"<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Tweet\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

By Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix<\/a><\/p>\n

The rapid expansion of the state\u2019s School Choice scholarship program burrowed a $47 million hole in the Florida Department of Education\u2019s budget and left public and private schools complaining they aren\u2019t getting properly paid.<\/p>\n

Money problems that arose during the 2024-2025 school year can largely be attributed to the mobility that students enjoy to shift from public to private or to home education freely, said Adam Emerson, director of the Department of Education Office of School Choice.<\/p>\n

Although students transfer to and fro throughout the semester and academic year, the DOE isn\u2019t always as nimble when it comes to directing payments.<\/p>\n

Appearing before the House\u00a0PreK-12 Budget Subcommittee last\u00a0week, Emerson said the department lacks the ability to split payments between public and private schools mid-semester. During the 2024-2025 school year, in which the education budget ran a deficit, about 23,000 students were identified as being enrolled both in public school and a private school.<\/p>\n

During the first quarter of this, the 2025-2026, school year, state scholarship funding programs sent money before cross-checking whether students would be double-counted. More than 27,000 students in the first quarter of 2025-2026 were \u201cmatched,\u201d meaning they were identified both as a scholarship student and a public school student.<\/p>\n

Before verifying the location of those students, at least $7 million went to families, according to officials with Step Up For Students, the state\u2019s main scholarship organization.<\/p>\n

Florida spends more of its general revenue on education than any other government service \u201432% toward K-12 education.<\/p>\n

The state administrative\u00a0code<\/a>\u00a0provides that students who apply for a School Choice scholarship before Nov. 1 are eligible for the two first semester payments in September and November.<\/p>\n

Mid-semester changes can throw off enrollment forecasts and disrupt already-established budgets.<\/p>\n

Scott Ward, chief financial officer for Lake County schools, said that in the middle of the school year the district had to reduce its budget by $16 million \u201cwithout any real notification.\u201d That amount, he said, \u201cwould probably be a\u00a03.5% raise to our teachers that we wouldn\u2019t be allowed to give because we had to cut our budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keva Hampton, head of Inner City Christian School in Jacksonville, stood before the subcommittee to describe her school\u2019s\u00a0and other private schools\u2019 experiences, including \u201cchronic payment delays, fluctuating scholarship amounts, technical failures, lack of consistent communication, and we can go on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to make sure that we have budget integrity. We want the funds that you all are appropriating to us to reach our school, because when they are slowed and stopped or pulled back, the process failed. Students lose, schools lose stability, and your appropriation does not reach the intended beneficiaries,\u201d Hampton said.<\/p>\n

Her school is still owed $50,000 in state dollars for the previous school year, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fixing the problems<\/p>\n

Interim committee weeks \u2014 held in advance of the formal legislative session \u2014 can signal lawmakers\u2019 priorities ahead of opening day, in this case Jan. 13. The House education spending panel dedicated two 90-minute meetings to the matter on Oct. 8 and Oct. 15.<\/p>\n

For now, it seems lawmakers are considering options, both statutory and administrative.<\/p>\n

House members said their offices have been inundated by parents frustrated or confused about scholarship payments.<\/p>\n

About an hour into the Oct. 8 meeting, Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Palm City, said DOE was issuing ambiguous guidance.<\/p>\n

For now, Overdorf said, the department\u2019s strategy sounds like, \u201cI\u2019m sorry you missed the deadline, but it\u2019s okay we\u2019re going to go ahead and pay you anyway.\u2019\u201d He\u00a0said there\u2019s a need for better definition in state laws and rules governing the scholarship programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd sometimes there\u2019s going to be hard answers of, \u2018I\u2019m sorry you missed the deadline, we\u2019re not going to be able to do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Emerson replied: \u201cI think what we will have to do is start accepting some trade-offs. Do we want to put specific time windows, application windows, deadlines in place in exchange for restricting some of that student mobility? I think that\u2019s a discussion we have to discuss,\u201d Emerson said.<\/p>\n

At least two members of the spending panel suggested it would be easier to ensure money follows the students if payments were tied to Florida Education Identifier numbers, unique numbers associated with students.<\/p>\n

Reps. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, and John Snyder, R-Stuart, suggested the Legislature require parents to enter students\u2019 numbers on scholarship-funding organization accounts to keep track of students instead of relying as heavily on other information.<\/p>\n

Scholarship organizations told the panel that, despite the department providing them with student identification numbers, they do\u00a0not include the numbers when they return student information to the department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s inability to track the students seems like \u201ca technology restraint,\u201d Snyder said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Suzanne Pridgeon, DOE deputy commissioner for Finance and Operations, said some problems could lie with the state\u2019s 50-year-old public education funding algorithm called the Florida Education Finance Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the things that I\u2019ve noticed, and I think we all have, is we\u2019re in a formula, the FEFP, that\u2019s 50 years old. It wasn\u2019t built for a program to go in so quickly, probably,\u201d she told the panel.<\/p>\n

\"fb-share-icon\"<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Tweet\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t