Private school voucher plan vote could come early next week

Hunter
01/20/23

Iowa Republican legislative leaders are fast-tracking Governor Kim Reynolds’ private school voucher bill, and both the House and Senate are planning on putting it to a vote early next week.

The new program would use more than 340 million dollars of public funds when fully implemented so that parents, regardless of income, can get “tuition savings accounts” of up to $7600 annually to send their children to private schools.

Similar plans lesser in scope were approved in the Senate in 2021 and 2022 but failed to pass in the House, with Republican representatives in rural Iowa counties fearing their public school districts would lose significant funding. House Speaker Pat Grassley says he believes they have the votes this session to get it to the Governor’s desk for her signature.

Democrats in the House and Senate have uniformly opposed the legislation.

The Gazette reports the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency has not analyzed the fiscal impacts of the bill, and Democrats have said they’d like to see those estimates before it goes to a floor vote. Although they may be ready for review Monday, House Democratic leader Jennifer Konfrst says that’s not a lot of time to look over something that’s going to be a billion-dollar project over four years.