Randy Richardson is a former educator and retired associate executive director of the Iowa State Education Association.
Governor Kim Reynolds and the Republican-controlled legislature agreed to a budget that allocated $107 million in fiscal year 2024 to pay for private school vouchers for an estimated 14,068 students. But the number of Iowans who applied for “education savings accounts” vastly exceeded that number: 29,025 applications by the June 30 deadline.
The good folks at the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency, who usually do an excellent job of forecasting costs, calculated the original estimate. However, when the actual number is more than double your forecast, something is off somewhere.
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