Devious plans
A Times EditorialShould the state Supreme Court rule school vouchers unconstitutional,
Published November 27, 2005
the governor would filter tax money to private schools through a third party.
The Florida Supreme Court has yet to rule on the constitutionality of school vouchers, but Gov. Jeb Bush already is devising ways to outflank the court. If the justices say the state can no longer hand out tax money to private schools, then the governor has an end run ready: Filter the money through a third party.
This voucher laundering scheme comes courtesy of Patricia Levesque, the governor's education adviser, and would apply to a program that is 33 times the size of the Opportunity Scholarships currently under court review. She calls for creating a "McKay Nonprofit Scholarship-Funding Organization" that would take over the $99.5-million worth of vouchers going this year to disabled students. The vouchers would be patterned after the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship, which has experienced the greatest incidence of fraud. Corporations would write a check to the McKay organization and have their own state tax liability reduced by the same amount.
The Palm Beach Post uncovered the McKay voucher proposal, but not before the governor's press office first denied its existence. Understandably, the governor is not exactly eager for people to know about this latest devious plan, especially since justices aren't likely to be amused by the prospect of a state official looking for ways to circumvent an adverse ruling. As Senate President Tom Lee suggested to the Post, any new program would need, constitutionally speaking, "to pass the straight-face test." This one doesn't.
Constitutional questions aside, Levesque's plan raises a host of accountability concerns. The state has provided so little oversight into its current tax credit voucher program that an Ocala businessman with a history of fraud was able to start his own "scholarship funding organization" and walk off with $268,000 in tax money without ever giving a penny to a voucher student. The state was even forced to admit at one point that some students were illegally receiving two different vouchers because it had never compared the state voucher list with the tax credit one. Even some voucher supporters have argued the separate funding organizations are unwieldly and lack oversight. Strangely, Levesque's draft bill would make the job more lucrative by compensating the organizations, for the first time, for "reasonable administrative expenses."
The governor is not known for deferring to courts or taking losses well, but the Levesque proposal is brazen even by those standards. Lawmakers should not play this game. The court will rule soon enough, and there will be plenty of time for an honest and open debate about the future of vouchers.