Ghost Vouchers Strike Again
Voices from beyond warn Tennessee lawmakers to stop voucher scam
As Tennessee considers a massive expansion of the state’s school voucher scheme, warnings abound that policymakers do so at their own peril.
Here’s what expansion would mean for the state budget:
Legislative staff released an initial financial analysis Monday showing the governor’s program would cost $144 million next fiscal year, which Lee has included in his proposed budget; $346 million the following year for an estimated 47,000 participants; and then exceeding that amount in subsequent years when “the liability to the state could significantly grow.”
For perspective, the second-year cost of vouchers ($346 million) would also fund a raise of more than 10% for every public school teacher in the state.
The latest warning, though, comes from Arizona, where ghost students were receiving vouchers and around $600,000 was diverted to employees of the Department of Education.
Three former Arizona Department of Education employees were indicted on conspiracy and money laundering charges in what prosecutors say was a scheme to defraud more than $600,000 from an education voucher program that has drawn criticism for its skyrocketing costs and lax regulation by the state.
The employees created fake student profiles to receive the illegal voucher cash.
This isn’t the first time opportunistic ghosts claimed voucher cash from a system ripe for fraud.
Just a couple examples from North Carolina’s ghost voucher program:
Riverside Christian Academy-- 16 students enrolled, and 55 vouchers! At $6492 per student, that's a heck of a windfall. Mitchener University Academy reported an enrollment of 72 and collected 149 vouchers-- so about $230,000 of taxpayer money handed over for non-existent students.
The actual voucher scheme as planned is pretty scary. Adding ghost recipients to the mix is a budget nightmare.
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