ORLANDO, Fla. – Some Florida school administrators say it has been a stressful mess trying to get the funding to pay operating costs and teacher salaries.
Florida lawmakers recently expanded who qualifies for the School Choice voucher program and changed how scholarships are disbursed, leaving some schools on the brink of collapse.
Florida’s school voucher program is the largest in the country, with more 400,000 students awarded scholarships through the $4 billion program.
Many of these scholarships go to special-needs students, but according to school administrators, the contractor hired to distribute most of that money has failed to get it to schools on time.
“It’s very stressful, very stressful,” said Miriam Lundell, executive director of Chase Academy in South Daytona for 15 years. “In fact, the new system is completely stress-inducing.”
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The school has 88 students, all special-needs, and all of them receive scholarships from the state’s School Choice program.
In 15 years, there has never been a problem getting the funding on time -- until now, Lundell said.
In December, Lundell says the school noticed it had not received full-tuition payments for 18 students, shorting the school tens of thousands of dollars.
“I projected, conservatively, over $30,000,” she said.
That’s for one quarter, leaving the school struggling to pay the bills.
“I’m running out of operating funds, enough to cover the next payrolls,” Lundell said.
“So my rent was due, and I gave them a small check. I said, ‘I don’t have the money right now,’” Lundell said.
Lundell is by no means alone.
It’s happening around the state.
Mary Jo Walsh, founder and CEO of Mountaineers School of Autism in West Palm Beach, said, “We were forced to take out high-interest loans in order to make payroll and our rent. In 10 years of having a school, this has been the most stressful -- financially, spiritually, emotionally -- than I have ever experienced.”
Step Up for Students is the third-party contractor that Florida’s Department of Education uses to disburse scholarship funds.
When state lawmakers passed HB1 last year, it turned scholarships into education savings accounts or ESAs, and changed how the money is disbursed, according to Scott Kent, director of strategic communications for Step up for Students.
“Last year, we could send schools money directly after confirming enrollments,” Kent wrote in an email to News 6.
“Now, by law, we must fund each individual student account first because they are now ESAs. That creates an invoice that schools must confirm, then we can pay schools,” according to the email.
“Our student funding files must be verified before this process begins to meet stringent accountability measures mandated by state audits of scholarship funding organizations. This is a new process that changed after years of schools using the prior method. It will take a few quarters for schools to become familiar and comfortable with the changes,” according to the email.
Now, the money is disbursed quarterly, but schools say even that has been short and no one warned them this change was coming.
“When the amounts came, they were not correct. They were oftentimes largely underfunded. And it made our budget very difficult,” Walsh said.
Administrators say their Step Up for Students regional managers can’t explain it.
“Nobody knew why. Nobody,” Lundell said.
“It took something that had been over the years, I would have to say, fairly streamlined, and turned it into a mess, and I don’t know the reason for it,” Lundell said.
Walsh says she has exhausted her personal savings and has not taken pay for eight weeks. She has taken out two loans and is two months behind on the mortgage for one of her buildings.
Step Up for Students has paid 98% of students enrolled in scholarship schools in the second quarter, according to Kent.
“Within the remaining 2%, we have continuing challenges involving data and/or technology that we are working every day to address,” Kent said.
He went on to say, via email, that Step Up for Students is committed to correcting the problems.
“We are committed to working tirelessly with our partner schools to resolve every issue. When we become aware of missing payments at a school, we determine if there is anything we can do immediately to alleviate their situation, such as paying invoices, funding students, even advancing funds to the schools with verified student enrollment to ensure they can continue operating,” Kent said.
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