Legislative rulemaking committee shoots down changes to Hope Scholarship

An attempt to require all participating schools in the Hope Scholarship program be located in the state was vehemently rejected by lawmakers this week. 

Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, offered up an amendment Monday in the Rulemaking Review Committee to regulations governing the program that would require all microschools, private schools or parochial schools, receiving money from it for tuition or fees, be located inside the state of West Virginia. 

The Hope Scholarship uses taxpayer dollars for families to pursue private or home education. 

In the 2025-2026 school year, the vast majority of the $45 million spent on tuition and fees at nonpublic schools stayed in the state of West Virginia. About $2.4 million went to the surrounding states of Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, mostly to schools located in border regions. 

Young’s amendment mimicked a similar proposal released by the House Finance Committee in February, which was part of a larger package to cap spending in the Hope Scholarship. Lawmakers killed the bill after pushback from homeschool families and school choice organizations. Big-money supporters of the school choice programs funded a successful primary challenge against the committee chair months later. 

Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, one of the chief architects of the Hope Scholarship program, accused Young of “legislating through rulemaking.” 

“This amendment clearly is trying to change what’s in the code, and I will have to say that any member of this committee can introduce legislation if they disagree with something in code, and they’re welcome to do so,” Rucker said. 

The powerful rulemaking review committee is composed of six state senators and six delegates. Most agencies — there are a few exceptions like the Department of Education — can write regulations in order to effectively enforce the law. Those rules can’t contradict or undermine the law it’s meant to enforce. 

Lamakers on the review committee can then have their say in the rule. Once they get done tinkering with it, they recommend it be passed and the two co-chairs of the committee will introduce it in the following legislative session. 

Prior to hurling the accusation at Young, Rucker conferred with legislative attorney Phillip Childs. 

“I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to look at the code, I’m pretty certain it says there that the funds can be used anywhere, it doesn’t restrict it to just the state of West Virginia?” Rucker asked. 

“That is correct, Madam Chairwoman. The code does not explicitly say that it can be used — I don’t recall where it says explicitly used anywhere. It does not say that it must explicitly be used in West Virginia,” Childs said. 

The following day, Young took issue with a number of changes to rules surrounding the Aboveground Storage Tank Act. In that case, some of the changes proposed by the Department of Environmental Protection were from tweaks stricken out by lawmakers working on a law to change the act. Legislative attorney Robert Akers told Young that the DEP was within its right to add these features into the rules, because the law didn’t explicitly forbid it. 

“Unless we specifically say that, it’s not the law,” Akers said. “We didn’t say ‘thou shalt not do this’ in the bill.” 

“Well, we didn’t say it is the law,” Young said. 

“We didn’t put it in the code specifically, but we did not forbid it either,” Akers said. 

The aboveground storage tanks rules ultimately passed. 

In the case of the Hope Scholarship, the law defines schools that receive Hope Scholarship as “any” elementary or secondary private school. Rucker, in a phone interview Wednesday, said the “any” protects the out-of-state schools in the rulemaking process. 

“The state legislature could decide to narrow it to be more specific at any time that they want,” Rucker said. 

Young said she figured it would happen that way. 

“When it happened on Hope, I was like, oh, the reverse is going to happen tomorrow,” Young said. “I do think they’re moving the goalposts.” 

Rucker said in the case of DEP, that department is given more latitude in its rules because it has to adjust to changes on the federal level. So even though those proposals were nixed in the legislative process, they could come back. But in the case of the Hope Scholarship and the Treasurer’s Office, who oversees the program, they can’t. 

“Unlike the Hope Scholarship, in that law, we do give the authority to the commissioner, to DEP, the ability to do what he needs to in order to ensure the safety of the citizens,” she said. 

Young said she didn’t believe her amendment overstepped the boundaries of rulemaking.  

“We can’t change what the law says, but we can clarify what it says,” Young said. “So, I can say any school in West Virginia — that’s a reasonable clarification. I can understand if the members don’t want to do that, but I think that I have full authority under the law to do so.” 

The committee also shot down two other amendments offered by Young. One would’ve required self-reported income information by families applying for the Hope Scholarship for demographic purposes. The other would’ve required participating schools to submit their attendance policies to the Hope Scholarship Board.