This story was originally produced by the New Hampshire Bulletin, an independent local newsroom that allows NHPR and other outlets to republish its reporting.
As New Hampshire’s education freedom accounts program has grown in scope, some lawmakers have pushed to scrutinize it. In 2022, the Legislature passed a bill requiring an audit of the way the Department of Education is administering the program, and Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed it.
But two years after that bill, House Bill 1135, the audit is facing major hurdles.
State employees with the Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant say they are unable to obtain the information they need on the students and families receiving education freedom accounts to complete the audit, citing a disagreement with the Department of Education over access to the data.
The Department of Education counters that the data is held by a private contractor, not the state, and thus can’t be turned over to be audited. Without access to the data, the LBA says it will not be able to complete most of the audit required by the 2022 law.
“We could complete the audit of this chapter law based on what information we can audit and then issue a report to comply with the chapter law,” said Christine Young, director of audits for the LBA, speaking to lawmakers Monday. “That report would be very limited, because we can’t review much of the information that’s held by the scholarship organization.”
The disagreement caught the attention of lawmakers this week. Democrats on the Joint Legislative Performance Audit and Oversight Committee have pressed the department to obtain the data and share it with auditors to follow the statute. Some Republicans, meanwhile, have argued that the data belongs to a contractor and that it would be inappropriate for legislative branch auditors to seek it.
The debate is the latest skirmish in an ongoing battle between Democrats and Republicans about the education freedom accounts program, which allows lower-income families to access state funds to help home-school their children or enroll them in private schools. The state is projected to spend $22.1 million toward the program in the 2023-2024 school year, according to department figures from October.
Democrats have opposed the program since its creation in 2021, arguing that it inappropriately diverts taxpayer money away from public schools. Republicans have championed the program as a means to allow families opportunities to pursue alternative education if they are dissatisfied with their public school.
The program is overseen by the Department of Education but is operated by a third party: the Children’s Scholarship Fund, a nonprofit organization based in New York. Under a contract with the state, the department transfers money from the state’s Education Trust Fund to the scholarship organization, and the organization then holds it and administers its disbursement to schools and services on behalf of the families.
Since passage of the program, Democrats have attempted a number of bills to either repeal the program, pare back who is eligible, or introduce more oversight. Most bills have not survived votes in the Republican-led legislatures. But HB 1135 passed in 2022 on voice votes in the House and Senate.
The bill requires the LBA to conduct a performance audit of the education freedom accounts program under the Department of Education. That audit must review whether participants are eligible; whether there are sufficient controls for how participating families may spend the money; whether the department is identifying and recovering ineligible expenditures; how the department is transferring the funds to the Children’s Scholarship Fund; how the department is administering “phase-out” grants to public schools to help reimburse for departing students; information on student outcomes within the program; and demographic details of the students participating,…
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