Explosive report on NH voucher program compliance failures leads to calls for transparency

New Hampshire Democratic leaders in the state House and Senate are sounding the alarm after a recent compliance review by the state’s Department of Education (NH DOE) uncovered significant issues within the Education Freedom Account (EFA) program, the Republican branding for the state’s school voucher program.

The compliance review, conducted in 2023 but not released until July 2024, revealed that 25% of the applications approved by the Children’s Scholarship Fund (CSF) under the voucher program were improperly documented, with issues ranging from unverified residency to inaccurate income reporting.

The findings have raised concerns about the program’s integrity and the NH DOE’s handling of the situation, prompting an immediate response from key Democratic leaders in the state.

State House Democratic Leader Matt Wilhelm (D-Manchester) was among the first to react to the compliance report, emphasizing the severity of the findings.

“The compliance review of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut’s private school voucher program found that a quarter of approved applications failed to properly document residency, family income, or student-specific characteristics. These findings are deeply alarming and warrant an immediate and thorough audit by the state legislature,” Wilhelm said in a statement.

Wilhelm slammed Edelblut — a Republican who has championed the voucher scheme — for his decision to withhold the findings from state legislators for nearly a year, arguing that the delay prevented lawmakers from taking necessary actions to address potential misuse of taxpayer funds.

“Had these findings been made available when Commissioner Edelblut had them in the Fall of 2023, we could have worked to ensure that hardworking Granite Staters’ taxpayer dollars were used appropriately, and not given to families in California and New Jersey to send their children to private school in New Hampshire,” Wilhelm added.

The sentiment was echoed by State Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Becky Whitley, Democratic Floor Rep. Leader Lucy Weber, and Senior Democratic Advisor Rep. Mary Jane Wallner in a joint statement. They expressed their dismay at the NH DOE’s apparent abdication of oversight responsibilities to the CSF, a New York-based nonprofit tasked with administering the EFA program.

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“The responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars is a fundamental responsibility of our government and of our elected officials. That is why it is deeply troubling that the New Hampshire Department of Education has delegated virtually all of their authority to run the Education Freedom Account program to the Children’s Scholarship Fund. This has resulted in a troubling lack of oversight and transparency of the EFA program, which receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars,” the statement read.

The lawmakers underscored the need for the NH DOE to collaborate more effectively with the legislature to ensure that public funds are used appropriately. They also criticized the department’s refusal to cooperate with the Legislative Budget Assistant (LBA) during its audit of the EFA program, noting that this has hampered the ability of legislators to perform their oversight duties.

The audit’s limitations, largely due to the NH DOE’s refusal to provide full access to the necessary data, have further fueled Democratic concerns.

According to a recent report by InDepthNH, the department and the Attorney General’s Office have both maintained that the data in question belongs to the CSF under the state’s “standard contract” and not to the state itself, despite the contract stipulating that the data belongs to the state. This stance has effectively blocked the LBA from conducting a comprehensive audit of the program, raising serious doubts over the NHDOE’s commitment to transparency.

In a recent Joint Legislative Performance Audit Committee meeting, LBA officials expressed their frustration over the NHDOE’s handling of the audit.

“This is a situation where millions upon millions of public dollars are put into a program operated by a private organization and due to the Department of Education’s unwillingness to allow the LBA to go in and audit directly this organization which is utilizing and giving out public dollars,” said Sen. Whitley during the meeting.

The compliance report, which flagged issues in 12 of the 50 student applications reviewed from the first two years of the program, indicated that the CSF had often bypassed required documentation, instead relying on alternative, less rigorous methods to determine eligibility. This has led to concerns that millions of taxpayer dollars may have been improperly allocated, with the potential for significant financial mismanagement within the voucher program.

In light of these revelations, Democratic lawmakers are demanding immediate action. They are calling for a comprehensive audit, greater transparency, and stricter oversight measures to prevent further misuse of public funds.

Rep. Wallner emphasized the need for continued vigilance, stating, “Granite Staters deserve better. House Democrats will continue to fight for fiscal responsibility and transparency in Concord.”

The Republican-backed voucher program has been infamously over-budget in the state, draining vast and uncapped pools of property taxpayer funds that have overwhelmingly gone to New Hampshire families who have already enrolled in private and religious schools, shifting the burden on paying for the program from the individual to New Hampshire taxpayers.