What if a state program were bleeding billions of taxpayer dollars, providing funds to nearly anyone who applied, with minimal oversight?
Fiscal conservatives would demand immediate intervention. They would call for rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, insist on accountability from those in power, and demand swift action to protect public money.
While much public attention has focused on charter school expansion, including Schools of Hope, this discussion concerns a different program altogether: Florida’s rapidly expanding, taxpayer-funded voucher program.
That program, particularly the unchecked growth of the Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES), now allows public dollars to fund private school and homeschool education on an unprecedented scale.
State officials tout a budget surplus, but independent analysts project that an additional $4–5 billion in annual voucher spending will lead to an imminent budget deficit.
The findings of a recent independent audit of FES are alarming. It examined what happens to these public funds and whether they truly “follow the child,” as Floridians were repeatedly promised.
They did not.
The auditor general was blunt: “Whatever can go wrong with this system has gone wrong.”
The audit raises more questions than answers:
— Why would state legislators steer a previously healthy state budget toward a projected deficit?
— Why is the state unable to account for roughly 30,000 students — representing approximately $270 million in taxpayer dollars — on any given day?
— And why is voucher spending deliberately obscured from public scrutiny by burying it in the public-school funding formula?
According to auditors, Florida’s voucher program has grown faster than the state’s ability to manage it. They identified gaps in real-time tracking, limited verification of eligibility and enrollment, and financial controls that have failed to keep pace with explosive growth.
These are not minor administrative errors; they are flashing warning lights.
Waste, fraud, and abuse are not partisan concerns; they are fiscal ones. Any government program that cannot clearly show where public dollars are or whether they are used appropriately represents a failure of the Legislature’s duty to safeguard taxpayer funds.
It is also important to be honest about what voucher growth truly represents. Despite frequent claims of a mass exodus from public schools, data show that roughly 70%of voucher recipients in recent years were not previously enrolled in public schools.
This is not a story of families fleeing public education. It is a story of public dollars being quietly redirected away from it.
That distinction matters because Florida’s public School Districts remain subject to strict accountability standards that do not apply to private or homeschool programs that receive voucher funds. Public schools must administer state assessments, publish performance data, comply with open-records laws, and undergo regular financial audits.
Public education across Florida is not stagnant. School Districts are actively innovating while serving as responsible stewards of public dollars by expanding career pathways, strengthening partnerships with local employers and higher education, and adapting to an increasingly complex choice landscape. When Districts are supported by stable policy and predictable funding, they lead.
But choice only works when transparency and quality accompany it. If state dollars support a student’s education, those dollars should be accompanied by state-level accountability, including meaningful oversight and participation in statewide assessments.
State dollars should meet state standards.
The audit also makes clear that technical fixes alone are insufficient. As long as voucher funding remains intertwined with public school funding formulas, billions of dollars in voucher spending will remain obscured from public scrutiny. The program must stand on its own.
Florida’s fiscally conservative Senators recognized this reality when they introduced SB318, a bipartisan bill to implement the auditor general’s recommendations and bring transparency and fiscal responsibility to school choice. The House must now follow suit.
Families like mine value school choice. But without meaningful reform, the current system is not financially sustainable.
Fiscal responsibility and educational opportunity are not competing values. Floridians must insist on both.
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Liz Barker is a Sarasota County School Board member.
