Voucher plan winding through legislature
A new plan to stop a massive increase in Ohio’s school voucher program emerged late Tuesday after hours of closed-door talks.
The deal — which Senate Republicans passed out of
committee on a partyline vote — would drop the number of schools where students could use a voucher from 517 to 425 while raising the income guidelines to 300% of the federal poverty level. That’s about $105,000 for a family of four.
Lawmakers have until Saturday to get something to the governor’s desk. That’s when the Edchoice enrollment period starts for the 2020-2021 school year.
If a new law isn’t enacted by midnight Friday, the list of eligible schools will balloon to more than 1,200 and include buildings in the affluent Dublin, Olentangy and Upper Arlington districts.
The previous version of the bill would have frozen the current list of voucher-eligible schools while state lawmakers worked to overhaul Ohio’s state report card system. (That’s how schools become voucher eligible.)
The current version, which late Tuesday night was awaiting a vote by the full Senate, would remove school buildings with an overall grade of A, B or C on the report cards from the Edchoice Scholarship list, as well as some D-rated schools.
The problem for Senate Democrats is the expansion of the incomebased vouchers, known formally as Edchoice Scholarship Expansion.
Sen. Sandra Williams, D-cleveland, said she would support the bill without that part, and she thought other members of her party would, too.
Without Democratic support, it will take almost every Republican in both chambers because the bill needs a supermajority of lawmakers to support it to become law by Saturday.
If the bill ultimately clears the Senate late Tuesday night, it will head to the House Wednesday morning.
House Speaker Larry Householder, R-glenford, released a brief statement saying he looks forward to reviewing the Senate’s proposals. The House session is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, in which a different voucher fix could emerge. A conference committee to resolve possible differences already is set for late in the morning.
“I don’t know what the House is going to do,” said bill sponsor Sen. Stephanie Kunze, R-hilliard. “I hope they do something quickly.”