ESAs would provide scholarships to families of four making $75,000
15th April 2024 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
Monday evenings, early in the Legislative Regular Session, are usually relaxed occasions for conversation and crawfish. On April 8, the tables were set up in the Pentagon Barracks courtyard for just that, mere steps from the Capitol Building. Crawdads, shrimp, vats of lima bean succotash and pastas, strawberry shortcake and extensive libations were waiting by 5 p.m., the time the La. House normally adjourns for the day at that point in the session. Yet, there were no legislators to be found.
By the time that they arrived two hours later, looking beat up and exhausted, a contentiously divided La. House had managed to pass HB745, or the Giving All True Opportunity to Rise (LA GATOR) Scholarship Program, which would establish an Educational Savings Account (ESA), by a vote of 72-32, but with considerable wounded feelings.
Some Democrats called the legislation “vouchers for the rich,” while others like Black Caucus member and New Orleans Rep. Jason Hughes made impassioned speeches on the bill’s behalf. Hughes argued that his life took a far different course due to the full scholarship to Jesuit High School, which opened opportunities for a young Black man and a kid from the inner city might never have otherwise had.
The comments led fellow New Orleans Democratic Rep. Mandy Landry to note that the restrictiveness of private school entry policies could close the doors on many applicants from similar backgrounds as Hughes. In contrast, most Republicans and a few Democrats also argued that the “vouchers for the rich” perspective was misleading, noting that the ESAs would direct state funding for school tuition and expenses to families making less than 250 percent of the poverty level, or approximately $75,000 for a family of four. As one put it, it might extend the scholarships into the working middle class, but “nobody thinks a family of four making $75,000 is rich.” It was a point that several legislators repeatedly emphasized – countering press accounts in the daily paper that implied the ESAs were not capped at working-class income levels.
In point of fact, the caps discussion led the debate to a discussion of whether the state could afford the scholarship program. Defenders like GOP Rep. Polly Thomas of Metairie noted that the ESAs would remain limited to the current voucher pool in year one. In year two, needs-based ranking would limit growth. By year three, however, the program would expand to its full potential student base – at least 41,000 students – yet legislative appropriators had the discretion to limit the size of the program based on revenue realities. Still, how to pay for that increase if offered to all eligible, estimated by the Legislative Fiscal Office at a cost of $258 million, remained the question for which few legislators had answers. In fact, several legislators privately mused at the crawfish boil afterwards, would other revenue sources be required, including the sales tax set to expire next year?
House Bill 745 (and its companion Senate Bill 313) would establish the LA GATOR Scholarship Program to provide educational savings accounts for parental choice in K-12 education. Despite the euphemism, the bill’s stated purpose is “to create an opportunity for each parent to set aside part of their tax dollars in an educational savings account in order to provide the best educational opportunities for their child, whether the child’s best opportunities are found at a public school, charter school, private school, home study program, or at a faith-based or religious school.” In other words, it’s a classic voucher program “composed of state funds deposited on behalf of a student eligible to participate in the program,” as the legislation reads.
Uses for the money would include everything from tuition and school uniforms to computer equipment and textbooks to tutoring and transportation fees in an amount up to 80 percent of the MFP. Most students would qualify for significantly less than that amount, just over $5,100 per year, with special-needs students getting significantly more. The TOPS program provides public scholarship funding for all Louisiana college students, regardless of parental income. TOPS, a public voucher program for higher ed, remains arguably the proverbial third rail of Louisiana politics, untouchable – even though original estimates for the program quintupled – amounting to $310 million last year.
Perhaps a better question is whether the high cost of Gov. Landry’s pursuit of a primary and secondary school choice program for middle-class families will force him to renew the .45 cent state sales tax due to expire in 2025. Its elimination is a major priority for both fiscal conservatives (trying to show significant tax cuts) and members of the Legislative Black Caucus (who worry about the tax’s regressive impact on the poor); and Landry might have to renew the sales tax, as one legislator predicts that, by 2027, the ESA program would cost nearly $258 million, or six times as much as the current voucher budget for low-income students.
Vouchers likely would not cover all tuition. Very few private or parochial schools charge at or below the $5,100 offered by the state. Of course, with Catholic school tuition amounting to $7,500 on average per child, it could make a significant impact on middle class family budgets. Plus, recent demographic declines in student populations have reduced matriculating students – in all schools, public and private. In other words, parochial and non-sectarian educational institutions have availability for new student placements in ways that private schools have not, at least in generations.
Of course, many of these new students would be leaving public schools and taking their public funding with them. Conservative advocates of school choice argue the Louisiana state budget spends approximately $15,000 per student. In theory, removing $5,100 per child would leave behind roughly $9,900 in the system for the remainder. (Under SB313, though, special-needs students could qualify for the entire $15,000, with the stipend amounts set at $7,550 for low-income families.)
However, add the entire 41,000 private school students who would be eligible to receive private education stipends by the 2027-2028 school year on top of the current funding pool, and the Legislative Fiscal Office estimates a negative fiscal impact to the state budget of more than $215 million.
It is not necessarily clear in the legislation whether the money would come out of the current MFP. Technically, like TOPS, ESAs would not receive funding out of the state’s education budget. They would constitute a separate line item. Therefore, the Minimum Foundation Formula would experience no cuts, at least in the short term. However, to protect TOPS in the last two deficit crises, general higher education funding did prove to be on the chopping block along with other programs. Many of those fiscal cuts necessitated the passage of the higher sales tax in the first place.
In a confidential interview with The Louisiana Weekly, a member of the La. House Appropriations Committee admitted that the governor had requested that legislators begin to locate extensive reductions in the state budget, anticipating the loss of the $460 million per year collected by the temporary .45 cent sales tax. Currently, the loss of this sales tax (enacted under Gov. John Bel Edwards) presents lawmakers with a potential “fiscal cliff” especially when other tax reduction priorities, such as the bipartisan proposal to eliminate the corporate franchise tax, are factored. Dangers of the Louisiana budget being pushed into deficit under the proposed ESA plan cost made a few legislators wonder, though open discussion of funding mechanisms, such as renewing the sales tax, did not come up on the House floor during last Monday’s debate.
A few Republicans did oppose HB745, out of a worry for rural districts that rely heavily on state funding, which would be reduced if students use ESAs to switch to private schools. As Pollock GOP Rep. Gabe Firment stated, “it will be more harmful for rural districts or poor districts that lose students than maybe some of the more affluent districts.” Nevertheless, bowing to pressure from the Landry administration, Firment voted for it. The only Republicans voting against were Reps. Joe Stagni, R-Kenner; Neil Riser, R-Columbia, Brett Geymann, R-Lake Charles; Shane Mack, R-Livingston; Larry Bagley, R-Stonewall and Dewitth Carrier, R-Oakdale. Democrats casting their ballot in favor were Reps. Jason Hughes, D-New Orleans; Marcus Bryant, D-New Iberia; Travis Johnson, D-Vidalia; Larry Selders, D-Baton Rouge and Joy Walters, D-Shreveport.
Rep. Polly Thomas, a veteran educator, retired Professor of Education at UNO, and former Special Ed expert at the La. Department of Education, argued in an interview with The Louisiana Weekly that the ESA scholarships are the definition of parental empowerment. “This allows parents, if they’re willing, to provide the educational opportunities that reach each child. For each individual child learns in a different way, and this funding provides that flexibility.”
This article originally published in the April 15, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
