Senate voted to move the program

The Missouri Senate on Thursday voted to strip oversight of the state’s  private school voucher program from State Treasurer Vivek Malek, moving it to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The change was included in a wide-ranging education bill that also expands eligibility for MOScholars, the state’s tax-credit-funded voucher program. 

The plan still needs House approval before it can go to Gov. Mike Kehoe. The legislative session ends at 6 p.m. Friday.

For years, Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck, a Democrat from Affton, has accused the treasurer’s office of administering the MOScholars program with “incompetence.” But Thursday’s vote made clear that concerns about the program’s administration extend beyond Beck and are shared by some Republicans.

State Sen. Rusty Black, a Republican from Chillicothe and chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, told The Independent he pushed for the change “because of people’s concerns about how much difficulty (the program) has been having with it under the treasurer’s office.”

A spokesman for the treasurer’s office could not be immediately reached for comment. 

Last month, The Independent reported that the treasurer’s office inadvertently leaked the names of the students enrolled in the MOScholars program through a publicly available document posted on its website for around nine months.

Missouri treasurer’s office posted MOScholars student data on its website for nearly a year

The leak of student information followed other public missteps, like a report from the State Auditor that dinged the treasurer’s office for failing to conduct annual audits required by law. The report also criticized the office for lacking procedures to “adequately review or monitor annual reports” from the organizations that administer the scholarships.

These problems spurred Beck to ask for more accountability for MOScholars, hoping to add a requirement for elected officials to report on their personal financial disclosures if they had a family member receiving voucher funds.

That proposal ultimately failed, but Beck told reporters in a press conference last month that he saw a path for some of the changes he wanted.

“I have yet to have a conversation with one of my Republican colleagues that they say they think that the treasurer is doing a bang-up job with the MOScholars program. Not one of them has said that,” he said. “Matter of fact, they said the opposite.”

Black said that Beck was part of the effort to move the program to the education department’s purview, but “there were a lot of people in that discussion.”

He did not want to elaborate further. But it appears Senate Majority Leader Tony Luetkemeyer was tuned into the negotiations on the bill, which concluded earlier Thursday before he told reporters he planned to bring the education package to the floor.

The proposed transfer of MOScholars comes at an unsettled moment for the education department.

On Tuesday, Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger announced she was retiring after just two years in the role. And Thursday, And on Thursday, Kelli Jones, the department’s deputy commissioner of Learning Services and former chief of staff to Gov. Mike Parson, also announced she was retiring.

Black said he was surprised by Eslinger’s announcement. The choice to give education officials authority over MOScholars, despite the timing, was not related to changes in department leadership, he said.

Beyond changing the program’s administration, the bill also includes legislation from Republican state Sen. Brad Hudson of Cape Fair that would expand MOScholars eligibility to students diagnosed with dyslexia or a disability by a physician or mental health professional.

Currently, the program limits eligibility to low-income students and those with an individualized education plan, a document created by public schools for students enrolled in special education services. Those with the latter additionally receive increased funding, up to 175% of the base amount. This school year, vouchers covered up to $7,145 of a student’s tuition for nondisabled students and $12,504 for those qualifying as having a disability.

With many private schools charging more than the base MOScholars allowance, the increased rate given to disabled students is critical for families who cannot spend thousands out of pocket to cover remaining tuition fees.

Hudson, who told The Independent last month that he remained confident in the treasurer’s office after the leak of student data, ultimately voted against the broader education bill alongside 11 others.