The Senate is one step away from passing SB 87, the egregious expansion of the private school voucher tax credit “scholarship” program. The only successful amendment was removing the provision to raise the tax credit from 75% to 100%. The rest of our objections remain.
*75% tax credits are tax avoidance, not charity.
*This bill is a significant, unjustified expansion of this problematic program— this bill moves even farther away from supporting the original 200,000 free lunch Kansas kids; every next tuition “scholarship” can skip right over free/reduced lunch public school students; this bill lifts the entitlement budget cap; this bill creates eligibility for new groups of students and removes the public school attendance eligibility which is the next step towards universal vouchers.
*This bill hands over public dollars without requiring private SCHOOLs to “choose” all who apply.
*This program still puts students at risk.
*This program remains a religious subsidy program.
Additionally, the following amendments were soundly rejected:
* rejected amendments to increase transparency and oversight
* rejected amendments to ensure the approved tax credit program money is being awarded to waiting students
* rejected amendments to evaluate the academic achievement of scholarship students for the past 10 years and all those who applied.
* rejected amendments to drop “low income” for the program title, given this is no longer the program focus.
It was also particularly offensive that Sen. Erickson claimed the opponents of the bill didn’t even mention students. Sen. Sykes sought audits to ensure the program funds are actually getting to students and not being held by SGOs illegally. Sen. Pettey sought to have state assessments given to ensure academic progress for students. Objections to the raising of the income cap were discussed in terms of removing access for lower income students and instead favoring students who already have the means to attend private school (especially since the new categories of students don’t need to have attended public school).
Here is a link to our testimony opposing this bill: