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Committee advances bill to raise Education Freedom Scholarships to 40,000
Summary
The K-12 Subcommittee advanced HB 25 32 to expand Education Freedom Scholarships from current caps to 40,000 recipients after adopting an amendment; sponsor Leader Lambert said the program draws from the general fund and does not reduce public-school funding.
Leader Lambert, sponsor of HB 25 32, told the subcommittee the bill "does a very simple thing. It increases to 40,000, the maximum number of potential education freedom scholarships," and asked members for questions before a vote.
Lambert framed the scholarships as a general-fund program and said they were not taken "from public schools," arguing the legislature had increased public-school funding by more than $4.4 billion over the last decade and that the expansion primarily serves lower- and middle-income families. He described a prioritization hierarchy in the bill that gives priority to current scholarship recipients and then to households under 100% and 300% of the federal poverty level.
Representative McKenzie and others pressed for data on how many scholarship recipients previously attended private schools and whether the bill includes protections for rural districts that could lose pupils and funding. Lambert said the bill contains a floor for public-school funding and described existing hold‑harmless provisions, adding that the expansion "is about providing some schools choice options for Children" and that the program's total cost if fully expanded would be roughly $310,000,000 (the sponsor's figure).
The committee adopted amendment 013975 (deleting a section identified by the sponsor) and then voted to advance HB 25 32 to full education committee. The clerk recorded 5 ayes and 3 nos; the bill moves forward.
Next steps: HB 25 32 is scheduled for consideration in the full education committee.
