SB 1978

This bill makes the education freedom scholarship program subject to audit by the comptroller of the treasury. This bill authorizes the audit to utilize sampling and to include an analysis of the program monitoring and fraud prevention processes for the program. The audit must be made available to the members of the general assembly. This bill requires private school s that enroll freedom scholarship recipients to: (1) Be subject to audit by the comptroller of the treasury , pay the costs of such audits, and cooperate in the performance of the audits; (2) Voluntarily comply with the open meetings laws a nd open records laws; ( 3 ) Provide a written report to the parent or legal guardian of a recipient of the recipient's educational progress at least twice each school year; ( 4 ) Not increase tuition for a recipient by more than 10% year-over-year ; ( 5 ) Annually disclose the admissions criteria, tuition rates, and demographics of the school on the school's website; ( 6 ) Annually disclose the admittance rate for the school for the respective school year; ( 7 ) Publish the outcomes of the mandatory assessments administered to recipients on the school's website ; and (8) Contract with a CPA to audit the private school. The full text of this bill specifies components that must be included in the audits. This bill requires the department to do the following: (1) R equire an eligible student to disclose the name of the school in which the eligible student was enrolled in the immediately preceding school year on the scholarship application in order to receive a scholarship ; and (2) P repare an annual report for the scholarship program . The full text of this bill specifies various components that must be included in the report. This bill requires the co mptroller of the treasury to evaluate the scholarship program and submit a report to the general assembly by December 31, 2029 . All of the above-described provisions will be repealed on July 1, 2030. Present law establishes a five-tiered schedule or priority for awarding education freedom scholarships. The last two tiers are: (1) An eligible student who, at the time of submitting a completed application, is currently enrolled in a public school, or who is eligible to enroll in kindergarten in a public school for the respective school year, in the order in which the department receives completed scholarship applications; and ( 2 ) An eligible student, in the order in which the department receives completed scholarship applications. This bill replaces the last two tiers with a single fourth tier consisting of member s of household s with an annual household income for the previous year that does not exceed 300% of the amount required for the student to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch under federal guidelines . Present law requires that scholarship recipients in grades 3-11 must be annually administered a nationally standardized achievement test that is aligned to the respective private school's instructional plan or the TCAP test for math and English. This bill requires that the all recipients be administered the TCAP tests administered to public school students of the same grade, which must be administered uniformly to all students not requiring an accommodatio n. This bill deletes a provision of present law that specifies t he creation of the education freedom scholarship program does not expand the regulatory authority of this state, the officers of this state, or the authority of any LEA to impose any additional rules, regulations, or requirements on private schools that e nroll recipients beyond the rules narrowly tailored to enforce the requirements of the program. This bill requires that scholarship recipients be assigned a personal identification number in the same manner as public school students.