A school voucher program dependent on corporate dollars shrinks instead of growing as expected.
By STEPHEN HEGARTY
Published September 2, 2003
Just three months after lawmakers raised the cap on Florida's newest school voucher program to make way for an enrollment boom, the enrollment numbers are down.
As the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program begins its second full year, the early enrollment figures show a decrease of several thousand in the number of low-income children participating.
It's not entirely clear why. Some say the tough economic times make it less attractive for corporations and for families. Advocates resist the idea that recent adverse publicity has tainted the fledgling program.
While numbers for that voucher program have slipped, participation in the McKay Scholarship Program for Disabled children is way up. And participation in the state's original voucher program - the Opportunity Scholarship Program - is up too.
The Tax Credit Scholarship numbers are causing the most head-scratching.
John Kirtley, the Tampa man who oversees the collection and distribution of Tax Credit Scholarships for the Florida PRIDE Scholarship Funding Organization, said he and his staff have done exit interviews with parents who left the program. They learned a few things.
"First, the population of families we work with is very transitory," Kirtley wrote in an e-mail. As happens in the public schools, Kirtley said, the low-income families who take the scholarships often move out of the area or to a different part of the Tampa Bay area.
The other reason, Kirtley said, is financial. The scholarships are capped at $3,500. Often that does not cover the total cost of tuition, fees, uniforms and other costs, and low-income parents have to make up the difference.
"Many said they just could not keep up the payments," Kirtley wrote.
The Florida PRIDE funding organization had 2,768 children taking a scholarship to a private school at the end of the last school year, and 2,436 at the start of this school year. Children First in Central Florida ended last school year with 4,046 children, and reported starting this school year with 2,628. And the Florida Child organization in South Florida reported 7,508 at the end of last school year, compared with 5,629 at the start of this year.
Education Commissioner Jim Horne agreed that finances likely played a big role in the enrollment decrease. He added that the finances also can affect the contributions from corporations. If profits are down, they pay less in taxes and therefore have less to pledge to the Tax Credit Voucher program.
The way the program works, corporations can forgo paying state taxes if they agree to donate an equal amount to one of the state-approved Scholarship Funding Organizations. The money is then used to pay tuition at private schools for low-income children.
In May, lawmakers raised the cap on the program from $50-million to $88-million. Supporters believed the program was poised for growth.
Though it is unclear how close the Funding Organizations might come to the $88-million cap, Horne acknowledged there could be unintended budgetary consequences if the program falls way short of projections.
The public school budget was built on the assumption that more children would leave for private schools under the Tax Credit Scholarship plan. If those children remain in the public schools, school districts don't have the money to pay to educate them.
"Absolutely, that could have an impact," Horne said.
Last week, the Florida School Boards Association announced that enrollment projections seem to be off this year, resulting in budget shortfalls in districts. Though the enrollment picture still is coming into focus (several large South Florida school districts just started their school year last week), it seems clear that erroneous assumptions about growth in the Tax Credit Scholarship Program could hurt school district budgets.
"These are all interesting questions," said Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton. "How many kids? How much money? Are kids benefiting? Those are all questions that should have been considered before the bill was passed."
