Liz Barker wrote a guest op-ed for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, questioning Florida’s very problematic taxpayer-funded school voucher program.
What if a government program were bleeding billions of taxpayer dollars, handing out funds to nearly anyone who applied, with minimal oversight?
Fiscal conservatives would demand an intervention.
They would call for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, insist on accountability from those in power and demand immediate action to protect public money.
While the “hostile takeover” of public schools by mega-charter corporations through the Schools of Hope program has drawn attention, far less scrutiny has focused on Florida’s rapidly expanding voucher program – particularly the unchecked growth of the taxpayer-funded Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES), in which students may attend homeschool or private school.
State officials tout a budget surplus – but analysts project that an additional $4 billion to $5 billion in annual voucher spending will result in an imminent budget deficit.
The findings of a recent independent audit of the Family Empowerment Scholarships program are alarming.
The audit examined what happens to these public dollars, and whether they truly “follow the child” as Floridians were repeatedly promised.
They did not.
The findings should make every taxpayer furious.
The auditor general bluntly stated that whatever “can go wrong with this system has gone wrong.”
The audit raises more questions than answers:
- Why would state legislators steer a previously healthy state budget toward a projected deficit?
- Why is the state unable to account for roughly 30,000 students – representing approximately $270 million in taxpayer dollars – on any given day?
- Why is voucher spending deliberately obscured from public scrutiny by burying it in the public-school funding formula?
The audit concluded that the state’s voucher program has grown faster than its ability to manage it.