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Officials lay out options to fund scholarship program and face questions on oversight and outcomes
Summary
Department of Education staff told legislators that the ESTF scholarship program will have at least 15,000 slots this year under law and recommended funding 20,000 to meet demand; lawmakers asked for detailed expenditure breakdowns, district-by-district participation and assurance of fraud controls.
Superintendent Weaver presented the Education Scholarship/ESTF program status and funding options, saying the law requires a minimum of 15,000 scholarships this year and the department recommended funding 20,000 slots to meet projected demand.
"The law provides for 15,000 total slots this year," Weaver said, and noted that in the early enrollment window the department had approved about 6,000 returning students and had roughly 2,500 additional returning-student applications in process.
Weaver described program safeguards: funds are not disbursed as unrestricted debit payments but routed through an approved-provider marketplace and an administrative contractor; she named Class Wallet as the contractor and said only approved education service providers may receive payments. She also said referrals of suspected misuse would go to SLED for investigation.
Committee members pushed for more transparency. One lawmaker asked for a county-by-county participation list and a line-item breakdown of where ESTF money was spent; Weaver agreed to provide a more robust report. Representative concerns centered on whether the program favors providers used by more-resourced families and on the program's administrative fee and oversight.
What's next: the department committed to deliver a detailed ESTF spending and participation report and a clearer accounting of administrative costs to the subcommittee before further budget action.
