State Senator Don Gaetz’s SB 318 passed the Florida State Senate unanimously. Here’s what He said about the future of vouchers, private and public schools, should this bill pass the house and get signed into law by the governor. Christopher Saul interviewed Gaetz about the bill’s passage and what it would mean for students and families if it became law.
Christopher Saul: What does this bill mean for the future of school choice and the voucher program?
Senator Don Gaetz: “Well, it was a very good sign that the Senate passed the bill unanimously. School choice is not typically a topic that you can get unanimity on in the Senate or in the House, so I was very gratified that the Senate passed our bill.
Now what happens is that we began negotiations with our colleagues in the House to see if we can bring you know, bring this issue to some conclusion. We cannot allow the current state of affairs to continue because school districts are being shortchanged. Parents are placed at a disadvantage. They’re not getting their reimbursements in a timely fashion. Private schools are having difficulty. As we’ve discussed before, the current circumstances are untenable. There’s no way that we can continue to operate the school choice program the way we are with students being, quote, unquote, ‘lost’ and unable to be accounted for by the Department of Education, and hundreds of millions of dollars sloshing back and forth between private schools, public schools, and homeschooling without appropriate financial controls. So I take the passage of the bill yesterday in the Senate as a very important victory for saving school choice in Florida by taking the steps necessary to fix it.”
Christopher Saul: Does this bill mean the end of vouchers? What exactly does this bill mean for private schoolers and their families?
Senator Don Gaetz: “What it means for private school parents is that if we get this bill passed, we will be able to continue to provide scholarships for students who wish to attend private schools. If the bill does not pass, [the Florida State House of Representatives] I’m fearful about the future of school choice in Florida. So I would say that it was parents of private schools students who are using scholarships today should feel very, feel very good and very relieved that the bill passed yesterday, and they should light a candle and hope it’ll pass the House as well.
For context, money for the state of Florida’s scholarships for private schools come from two pots of money – The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship (which is funded by donations from businesses) and the Family Empowerment Scholarship (which is funded by the State of Florida’s taxpayers). Much like the Federal Social Security Fund – there is a certain amount of money for each fund and it can run out if it is overspent. The goal of the bill is to keep both funds solvent by enforcing more financial audits levels and controls to ensure the money ‘follows the student’ to the school they wish to attend.
Christopher Saul: On the public school side of the equation: I’ve had my my fill of school board meetings here in the last couple of months, and a lot of times, especially in the workshops they’ve discussed the fact that they’re nervous about losing enrollment. For example, Okaloosa County lost about 1000 kids to other institutions, for lack of a better term, whether that be online schools or private schools or charter schools. Will this bill help them stabilize their revenues, or is this not really touch that?
Senator Don Gaetz: “53 of the state’s 67 school districts are losing students, as thousands and thousands of families are choosing to have their children educated somewhere other than the neighborhood public school. This bill does not provide additional funding for public schools. The bill instead ensures that if the public school educates the student, the public school will actually be paid to do so. The problem is, we have many students, thousands, in fact, who may start the school year as homeschooling students. But then, you know, part of the way through the year, there’s a decision made, ‘no, we’re going to use the public school, or we’re going to use a private school,’ and so the student moves from home school to, let’s say, a public school. When that happens, the public school now has the responsibility and the cost of educating the students, but funding has already been paid into a homeschooling account, and so what this bill will do for public schools is make sure that if a student is enrolled in a public school, then the public school will get paid. That’s not the case necessarily. Now, this past year, public school districts lost over $100 billion. They were shortchanged that amount of money because they didn’t get paid for the students that they educated. This bill will fix that.”
Christopher Saul: “So for example, if I were to take my daughter out of public school at the end of the first semester and move her into the local, parochial school or private school, the money would follow her on maybe, like a monthly basis. Is that right?”
Senator Don Gaetz: “Under this bill? Yes. The whole point is that the money should follow the student. And under our bill, there’s a monthly check-off. We want parents to advise us: ‘where is your child in school, if your child is using a scholarship, where is your child in school, in home or at a parochial school,’ and then we will pay based on knowing where the student is.
[Currently,] the problem is that the state is paying and then chasing the payment, trying to find the student. And so hundreds of millions of dollars are sort of in limbo at any given point. But the answer is that, with this bill, we will have a monthly census, if you will, to determine where students are, so the right money goes to the right place to benefit the right student.
Christopher Saul: “So I’m going to ask you to predict the future. But do you like your chances in front of the house and in front of the governor?”
Senator Don Gaetz: “We’ve worked very closely with the governor’s office on this bill. We have met extensively with our partners in the house. They are working on the same issue that we are. They know that we have to solve this problem. We cannot allow the bad stewardship and poor management of this program to continue. We can’t allow the structural defect to continue.
The big structural defect in education right now is that all of the money for public school, private school, and homeschooling is in one appropriation. And it’s all mixed together, and then it has to get unscrambled, and that’s why the Auditor General of Florida said that his number one, first and most important recommendation and finding is that the family empowerment scholarship funds have to be separated from money that goes to traditional public schools so that it can be accounted for.
And that’s the essence of our bill, is to establish a separate accounting for these funds, and then to resolve all of the other management issues that the Auditor General has surfaced.
I have faith in the House of Representatives. They want to resolve this problem. They’re coming at it in a slightly different way, but I believe that the need to fix it, the need to make sure that we keep the promise of school choice, that need is so strong that it will, by the end of the session, bring us together, and we will pass a bill.”
Christopher Saul: “Is there anything else people need to know about this bill or its passage through the Senate yesterday?”
Senator Don Gaetz: “Well, the fact that it not only [had] bipartisan sponsorship, but a tripartisan sponsorship. We had Republican, Democratic, and we have one senator who’s No Party Affiliation… He was one of the sponsors. So we have a broadly sponsored, broadly based coalition [of] Democrats and Republicans who are behind this legislation to save school choice, to fix the problems and to make sure the Money Follows the student.”
According to the State’s Legislative analysis, the bill will make “substantial changes to education choice and school funding programs to improve student tracking, ensure funding follows the student, enhance budget predictability, create consistency across scholarship programs, and incorporate recommendations made by the Auditor General.
The bill standardizes processes across all scholarship programs by establishing fall and spring application windows, requiring a single application, and requiring documentation to verify enrollment status. The bill requires the Department of Education (DOE) to develop a standard withdrawal form for families leaving a public school to enroll in a scholarship program and to report on student mobility within the scholarship programs. To address data accuracy, the bill requires additional documentation at the time of application, including residency verification and a birth certificate. The bill requires the DOE to cross-check applicants against public school enrollment records and to assign a student ID to all scholarship recipients to standardize data tracking. The DOE is required to implement a uniform reimbursement and invoicing process. To enhance oversight, the bill requires an annual full-time equivalent (FTE) audit of scholarship programs by the Auditor General, with scholarship-funding organizations (SFOs) required to return any misallocated funds.”
For SB 318 to become law, a companion bill in the House would have to be designated and then passed in the House. Once the bills are sent through messages and modified to fit one another, the Governor would sign the bill into law, not sign it and allow it to become a law, or veto the bill and force a supermajority in the House and Senate to override the veto.
Currently, there is no specifically identified companion bill in the house – though there are several similar bills which could be amended to work as the companion bill in the House of Representatives.
Pro Communi Bono
St. Francis De Sales, Ora Pro Nobis!
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