Senate committee hears bills to tighten oversight, reporting and bidding for Education Freedom Accounts

Senator Deborah Altschuler, prime sponsor, told the Senate Education Committee that Senate Bills 5 32, 5 33 and 5 76 would strengthen oversight and transparency for the Education Freedom Account program after rapid program growth and a recent budget overrun.

Altschuler said the EFA program has expanded from roughly 1,635 students costing about $8 million to more than 10,500 students and over $52 million in annual subsidies. She said the program is $12,300,000 over budget this year and that the statutory oversight committee did not meet for a 13-month period, which she said demonstrates the need to make oversight and public reporting mandatory rather than discretionary. "When meetings are optional, oversight disappears," she said.

Under SB 5 32, Altschuler said, the oversight committee would be required to review aggregate student eligibility and EFA expenditures, hold monthly meetings, livestream and record meetings on the General Court website, and post agendas, minutes and reports on the Department of Education website. She emphasized that reporting would be limited to aggregate data to comply with FERPA and state privacy protections.

Matt Southerton, director of policy and compliance at the Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF), which administers the program under state contract, told the committee CSF already produces annual financial audits and IRS 990 filings and that the organization is accountable to the Department of Education and Department of Revenue. He expressed concern about student and family privacy and asked that the bill precisely define the data fields the oversight committee may review.

David Trumbull, a member of the public, urged support for increased oversight and asked the committee to collect longitudinal outcomes and other program performance measures, arguing that committee members should be able to monitor whether students served by the program are meeting educational benchmarks.

SB 5 33 would require the EFA administration contract to be subject to competitive bidding every three years. Altschuler said the Department of Education promised a competitive process when the original sole-source arrangement was approved in 2021 but no rebid occurred. She told senators that a three-year cycle would balance continuity for families with routine market testing of administrative services.

SB 5 76 would add definitions and quarterly reporting requirements detailing applications received and approved, funds distributed across vendors and expense categories, demographic breakdowns of students served, methods used for verifying eligibility and administrative-cost percentages. Sponsors said quarterly reporting would be posted to the Department of Education website and limited to aggregate figures consistent with federal and state privacy law.

Committee members questioned CSF about temporary removal and later redaction of vendor spending reports from CSF's website; Southerton said the reports were taken down temporarily out of caution for provider safety, then restored with abbreviated names for small sole proprietors and with accounting reconciled to DOE records. He told the committee CSF's administrative rate for the EFA program is 7.83 percent.

In executive session the committee voted to recommend ITL (Inexpedient to Legislate) on each of the three EFA bills by 3–1 margins, with objections to placing the items on consent noted in the record. The committee discussion cited concerns about duplicative reporting requirements, administrative burden and the need to balance privacy for small providers with public accountability.

The committee recorded the motions and numerical recommendations in executive session; the bills will proceed according to Senate rules and the full Senate calendar if prioritized for floor action.