The state Legislature is now starting another shell game with our school funding and property taxes. Can you guess where the dollars went? We now have had three voucher bills in the last 12 months. The first one, HB20, got stalled in the House until 2022. The second one, SB130, created the “Educational Freedom Account” and got stuck into the state budget.
Not to be outdone by the Senate, the House came up with HB607, which expands the costs even more. The first two bills seemed to cap the amount a family could earn and still qualify at 375% of poverty level. That’s kind of tough to predict because that’s not a fixed number. But just to simplify things, HB607 simply removed the cap. Now anyone can qualify.
The bottom line is that these programs allow our property tax dollars to pay for private education or offset costs for homeschooling. The private schools can be anything from a fancy vine-covered academy to a storefront. There doesn’t appear to be any definition of that. Even better, since this is a “Freedom” account, the school can even be out-of-state. Yes, your property tax dollars can be spent in Massachusetts. In addition, since so many signed up for this, the administrative structure included in SB130 couldn’t handle all the paperwork, so they contracted with a Florida firm to do that work for a 10% tip.
Why are they doing this? Big business looks at the public school system and sees all these opportunities to tap your property taxes for their own pockets. They distract you with words like “Freedom” and “Choice,” but the bottom line is that they want your money. They don’t care about you, your livelihood, or your children.
Jeff Dickler
Rindge