Lawmakers raise concerns in IFC about school voucher program

Members of the Interim Finance Committee peppered the treasurer’s chief of staff with questions about how the Education Savings Account program — essentially school vouchers — will work.

The issue was raised as Chief of Staff Grant Hewitt asked for the seed money needed to get the program up and running.

“This program is far too important to have a failure right out of the gate,” said Assemblyman James Oscarson, R-Pahrump.

He and several other lawmakers said they want to avoid the prospect of another Xerox fiasco — a reference to that company’s difficulties in setting up the computer program at the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange.

They questioned whether the IT company the treasurer wants to hire, i2net, has the experience and capability to produce a digital program to manage getting the public money to parents who want to use it to help pay private school tuition for their children.

Hewitt told lawmakers they looked at three other vendors as well and i2net was the best choice. He also said his office and state Purchasing Administrator Greg Smith agreed since lawmakers mandated the system be up and running by Jan. 1, there isn’t time to go through the formal RFP and contracting process.

He said the goal is a “true digital process, not a swipe a card system,” he said.

Lawmakers also questioned whether there are enough controls to prevent fraud by some parents and asked how kindergartners are being treated in the plan that requires all students do 100 days in public schools before leaving with the cash to attend private or religious schools.

Hewitt said kindergarten applicants are in a “pending” status while they figure out how to handle them. He said about 300 of the 2,000 applications received so far are from parents of kindergarten students. But he said attempts to qualify for the 100 days by simply taking one on line class have been closed off to prevent fraud.

Hewitt also pointed out the treasurer’s office wasn’t in the legislation as the program’s manager until the end of the 2015 session and had almost no input on the details of the bill.

The office went to IFC for start-up money totaling $116,213 mostly to pay for construction of the computer program. Hewitt said that’s a loan that’s going to be paid back once the 3 percent administrative charge on the ESA money transfers is paid to his office. He said that should generate about $1.1 million a year to run the program.

IFC approved the funding with Democrats on the committee voting no in philosophical opposition to the idea of a voucher program.