Florida mistakenly gave private school vouchers to public school students

Topline: Florida mistakenly spent an estimated $61 million to $110 million on private school vouchers for students that were still enrolled in public school during the 2024-25 school year, according to a recent report from the Florida Auditor General.

Key facts: Florida began offering universal school choice in 2023, allowing all students regardless of income to receive taxpayer dollars to attend private school.

Participating families can register their children with a nonprofit “scholarship-funding organization,” which then reports to the state how many kids want to attend private school. The state sends funds to the scholarship organization based on the number of registered students, and the organizations later distributes the cash to private schools.

For the 2024-25 school year, Florida funded the scholarship organizations with $4 billion in vouchers for nearly 500,000 students, according to the audit.

After the money was paid, the state realized that up to 37,700 of the students attended public school instead.

Florida’s plan to recoup the money was rudimentary at best. The parents of the 37,700 students received surveys in the mail asking whether their kids were attending public school. However, almost 25,000 surveys were never completed, and “in general” the state took no further action, auditors found.

The surveys that were mailed back to the state were not always useful because parents didn’t understand or follow the instructions. One parent listed their child’s name as “light house,” and another listed their student’s name as “2.”

With a few exceptions, Florida never asked the scholarship-funding organizations to return the money they received in error. In some cases, the organizations received reduced funding in the future, but nobody kept track of how much the state withheld.

The mishap bled the state Department of Education’s budget dry and left both public and private schools short of funds. Schools were promised $47 million in funding that never materialized, partially because it was sent to the wrong students, according to the Florida Phoenix.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: School choice is built around the principle that funding follows the student. That can’t happen when the state has no idea where its students attend school.

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