Florida Senate votes to temporarily lift cap on voucher program for students with disabilities

In response to the surging demand for school vouchers for students with disabilities, the Florida Senate decided on Wednesday to grant final approval to a bill designed to temporarily remove a cap limiting participation in a voucher program. 

This legislative action comes as part of a special session addressing various critical issues, with unanimous support from both the Senate and the House. 

Reports are that the bill, known as HB 3C, is ready to go to Governor Ron DeSantis, who earlier this year championed an ambitious expansion of state voucher programs, striving to offer what advocates tout as “universal school choice.”

A focus on the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities Program

The newly ratified measure primarily centers on the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities program, which had been constrained to serving nearly 41,000 students in the current school year. 

Under this legislation, the cap for the current year would be eliminated, granting authority to the Florida Department of Education and voucher-administering organizations to determine the maximum number of available vouchers.

An evolving approach

Starting from the next school year, the program would revert to a formula-driven approach to determine maximum capacity. 

According to a House staff analysis, the cap “shall annually increase by three percent of the state’s total ESE (exceptional student education) student membership, not including gifted students.”

Reports are that Senator Jay Collins, a Republican from Tampa who sponsored the Senate bill, drew attention to an extensive waiting list comprising approximately 8,900 students eagerly seeking access to the voucher program.

“As a parent of a unique-abilities child, there are a cavalcade of different things that you deal with. And making sure that we provide those opportunities to those parents, to those families, is unequivocally and unquestionably the right thing to do,” Collins said.

Application deadline and fiscal considerations

Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, representing Naples, along with other Republican sponsors, disclosed that families would have until December 15 to apply for these vouchers. 

House Speaker Paul Renner, hailing from Palm Coast, expressed that the cap on the number of vouchers in the program stemmed from fiscal considerations, citing a “sliding scale of severity” regarding students’ needs.

While the broad population of Florida students can receive vouchers worth approximately $8,000, the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities program may allocate over $20,000 per student, making precise estimations more challenging. 

According to Renner, “It’s harder for us to estimate that.”

Future considerations

Renner, a staunch supporter of vouchers, hinted that legislators could revisit the program’s participation criteria and scholarship costs during the 2024 legislative session, slated to commence in January. 

He stated, “I think we need to look at, is there a better way to estimate this? I don’t really like the cap. I don’t believe we should have a cap, necessarily. But it was a fiscal constraint because it’s harder to estimate those kids,” Renner said. 

“We just don’t know who’s coming and how severe their situation is and how much money would be attributed to the total amount of people in that program.”

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